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Hey All Figured I would write a Australia megathread since I probably see a Moving to/Holidaying in/Living in Australia post at least every other week and makes sense to have one thread for all the information. I will cover in some detail, what to do when your in Australia, Different Visa's, ways to travel, and other information such as rental prices and general cost of living and poo poo like that. My background, I moved from the UK to Sydney 3 years ago and had been on holidays out here prior to that in 2005. Ok so you have decided that you want to come to Australia to live/work/play for a period of time. Visa There are quite a lot of different visa's you can get to enter Australia, I wont cover them all but I will give a overview on the most common. Holiday Visa The most basic visa, gives you a 90 day stay in the country with no right to work, your able to travel around and poo poo like that. Working Holiday Visa - 417 This is the most common visa used by young people to stay in Australia and work for a period of time. This visa gives you one year to stay in Australia and you are allowed to work for any company for a maximum of 6 months. You can also get a extension to this visa if you do 3 months work in a rural area doing something like fruit picking, working on a farm or something like that. The extension is based on a postcode system, so you provide the details of your employer and they check it out and the extension is granted. The extension gets you another one year. The system can be cheated, for example they dont check every application and I have heard of people just pulling a farm information of the net and submitting it to get the extension, however if they check and are found out, they will kick you out of the country, so I cant endorse that. You are also allowed multiple entries under this visa. You also need to be under 30 as well and have a certain amount of money for you to use/support yourself, I think its around the 2000 GBP or $4000 or something to that effect. I think there is a different visa for US citizens which revolves around the same thing, however I dont think it lasts as long and you have to studying as I understand. Employer Sponsored Visa My current visa, this is basically a employer sponsored visa that allows you to stay for up to 4 years in Australia. I wouldnt call these easy to get anymore, they used to be however now not so much. The long and short of it, is your company will sponsor you to work here in a certain role, once the visa is approved they are responsible for you. Your employer has to prove that an Australian cant do your job and that your skillset is needed for the company to run. The restrictions are as follows, you can only work for the company that sponsor you, the company effectively hold your visa, so if you get made redundant or lose your job you have 30 days to get out of the country or get a new visa of some sort. You also cant change jobs unless you find a company that is willing to sponsor you. Most big companies will sponsor, however you do have to have a marketable skill, if you are a Uni Grad and not got any work experience, you are not going to get sponsored. Simple as that. If you are a Accountant, work in IT or Financial Services, Nursing, Dental, Doctor etc you can get sponsored fairly easily. You also get something called Living Away from Home Allowance, however I wont go into that as its pretty complicated. Skilled Migrant Visa There are a number of different skilled migrant visa's. This visa entitles you to Permenant Residency in Australia. To be eligable you have to obtain a certain amount of points and your job has to fall into one of the catagories that are under the skills shortage banner issued by Dept of Immigration. So if your a teacher, doctor, nurse, IT professional, Accountant etc you maybe eligable. You obtain points depending on how old you are, your degree, how many years experience, what language you speak etc. Once you have the points you can apply and your skills will be measured to see if you fit the criteria. The application can be made both onshore or offshore. General Visa Information If you dont have a marketable skill, dont bother trying to get a sponsored visa or skilled migrant visa. It wont happen. All the Visa's cost anything from $200 to $5000 depending on the visa. Visa Information can be found here: http://www.immi.gov.au/ Getting a Job I am gonna pre face this, if your going to stay for more than a year and not be a backpacker you wont get a job unless you can speak good english. There are to many people in this country that have marketable skills but their communication skills are so bad that they wont get a job. So if you cant speak properly, dont even loving bother. Most backpackers try and find bar work or end up doing sales/charity work trying to get people to sign up. If you have some half decent skills and dont mind doing office work this can be better paying and a bit easier as well. I first got a job out here working for a Financial Services company doing call centre work and got $40 p/h which is a pretty good rate for a backpacker and although boring much more rewarding than doing commission based sales. Register with some of the big recruitment companies like Randstad, Hays, Robert Walters etc and you should be able to get work. Job Websites include: https://www.seek.com.au https://www.careerone.com.au http://jobsearch.gov.au/default.aspx Salaries depends on what you do, I would say in general you dont want to be accepting anything lower than $50k + Super. If your 10 years + and worked for an Investment Bank and are manager level then you would be aiming for $100k +. To work your gonna need a Tax File Number which can be obtained here: http://www.ato.gov.au/individuals/content.asp?doc=/content/38760.htm a Bank account which any of the big banks can provide, however I would recommend either NAB or St George: http://www.nab.com.au/ http://www.stgeorge.com.au/ Cause they dont charge fees, have the most ATM's and their customer service is pretty good. Holidaying There is heaps of information that I can cover in this section so not going to cover all, but will try and cover some of the main points of things to do in general. International Flights, the main players on the Kangaroo Route from UK/Europe are Qantas/British Airways/Singapore Air and they go via Singapore. You can also fly with Cathay via Hong Kong, Emirates via Dubai or Thai Air via Bangkok. If your coming from the UK/Europe your looking at 24 hours of flying and unless you can afford business class, in cattle class. I always fly Singapore Air, although not the cheapest their service is first class, new planes with good inflight entertainment. If your coming from the US, Delta, V Australia, Qantas, United and Air NZ are your options. There is a massive price way going on, on that route at the moment, so fares of $1000AUD return including taxes can be found. From LAX your looking at a 13 hours or so in the air. Most airlines fly to the main cities, including Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth and Brisbane. You will need a passport. Dont underestimate the distances between things, to drive from Sydney to Melbourne takes 12 hours. Virgin Blue, Jetstar and Tiger are the budget airlines, with cheapish rtn fares. E.g. Syd to Melb one way about $70AUD. For backpackers you can obtain Greyhound passes that will take you all over the country. Usefull websites for backpackers: http://www.statravel.com.au/ http://www.hostelworld.com/ http://www.yha.com.au Cities and Things to Do Sydney Lots to do here, Harbor Bridge Climb, Opera House, Sydney Tower, Taroonga Zoo, Northen Beaches for fantastic beaches, Manly to Spit Walk, Whale Watching (Seasonal) Cruise Round the Harbor, Darling Harbor. Melbourne Australian Tennis Open in Jan, Eureka Tower, Fed Square, MCG, Yarra Valley. Sure there is more but cant think at the moment. I cant comment about the other state cities, but sure there is heaps to do. Other things that you must/should do if your on holiday here: Great Ocean Road and 12 Apostles Grampians Whitesuundays Uluru (Ayres Rock) Great Barrier Reef Fraser Island Byron Bay List is endless but those are some of the main ones. Tourism Australia website is gonna help you as well http://www.australia.com/index.aspx Living and Renting I have only lived in Sydney, so cant comment for other cities, however renting can be pretty expensive. A nice 2 bed apartment in the suburbs is gonna set you back $500 per week roughly. You can find more expensive places or cheaper and if your on your own normally you can rent a room for roughly $200-300 a week for a nice house. Websites to look for places: https://www.domain.com.au https://www.realestate.com.au http://www.flatmatefinders.com.au/ https://www.gumtree.com.au You will pay a premium for living near the beach and when renting i urge you to check what the public transport situation is, i.e near a main road, train station etc. https://www.131500.com.au is gonna help you out there. For the love of christ dont do what every english person does and move to Bondi, there are better beaches on the North Shore which are cleaner, nicer, not over crowded and you will find better housing there as well. Just remembered something about renting places as well, you will probably see rooms for rent, smack in the CBD for silly prices like $150 p/w. Basically you will be sharing a room, probably with a asian student that cant speak english and its not what it seems. Not to mention its illegal. Normally the landlord sets up bunk beds and crams in as many people as possible. Cost of Living It can get pretty pricy hear, if you actually want to enjoy yourself I recommend budgetting $300-400 a week. Food can be expensive, steaks for example can be $20 for two decent steaks that you will cook at home. Going out drinking is expensive and you will easily do $100 in a night without problems and then some more as well. Petrol is currently $1.27 per litre. Parking in the city, your looking at $40 or 50 a pay unless you get a special rate. Public transport is cheapish with a weekly bus/train/ferry ticket costing about $40 depending on the distance. If your not making lunches for work, your looking at $10 a day for a sandwich or something decent. Clothing can be expensive as well. Decent jeans can be $150-200 a pair. Other Things to Consider In summer it gets hot, last week was 41c, it was 36c as well. We get bushfires, big ones. Dont worry about all the deadly animals, I have been here for 3 years and not even seen a snake or shark. In winter it can get down to 5c in Sydney which when the houses dont have any central heating and thin walls can be cold. The houses are made to keep heat out not in. Australia is miles away from anywhere, for me to get home I have to fly 24 hours, none of my family are here and its expensive as well so if you get home sick easy I suggest you think long and hard about moving here. Time difference is 9 or 11 hours on GMT depending on the season. I am sure I have missed something, people can add to this thread with information about other cities or ask questions and I will do my best to answer them. Logan21 fucked around with this message at 12:17 on Jan 2, 2010 |
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Nov 29, 2009 02:31
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Car rental, depends on where you want to drop it off. Sydney or Brisbane? If your dropping it at Brisbane your going to need someone like Hertz or someone like that. I think Hertz are pretty good because their insurance waiver means you pay 0 excess if something was to happen. Most car rental companies you still have a excess of $300 even if you pay the excess reduction. Bayswater are good and cheap if your coming back to Sydney. As for Restaurents, try any of the following: Cafe Sydney, Aria, Rockpool, Spice Temple, Meat and Wine Co and Hurricanes. All of them are excellent, Meat and Wine and Hurricanes are steak places but they do vege/chicken/seafood. Aria is excellent, but a 3 course meal including wine, your looking at $500 for a couple.
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Dec 18, 2009 10:59
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Another thing that has come to my attention following me getting rear end raped by NSW Police Force for almost $1000 in fines on Sat morning, is that if your a PR and entering the country you will need to change your drivers license over after 3 months. Basically I got caught doing 120 km/h in a 100 km/h limit, I can accept that, however that was the least of my problems, because I was on my UK license they also wrote me a ticket for Never Holding a License as well. I think I can get out of it cause I am not a PR, however something for people to be aware of for sure.
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Dec 20, 2009 08:47
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Vanilla posted:I’m also from the UK and looking to relocate to Sydney. I actually just came back from a 5 week holiday where I saw pretty much allthe major places apart from Canberra (Cairns, Brisbane, Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney). I have tried to post this 2 times, since I am currently travelling and the net connection has been dodgy as, so third time lucky now that I am in Singapore airport with stable wireless. Re the LAFHA, you can only claim up to $250 a week as I understand and it also boils down to how much money you earn as well, as you have to earn a certain amount above a freshhold to claim it. Some companies do your rent, food, airfares others only do rent and food. If you do use LAFHA make sure you get a good tax accountant as well. Also on the LAFHA front, although it sounds like your getting a good deal, take into account that as per your visa you must have valid health insurance as your not allowed to be a burdern on the medicare system. I pay $208 a month for full cover and I mean full. Covers everything and pays out fully, not just to a certain amount like other insurers do. I would of been screwed if I didnt have my cover, I had to have back surgery for a bulging disc in my lower back this year and it cost $20k. So yeah definitly something to bear in mind. Ummm yeah let me think re what you will need: Bank Account TFN Medicare card Those are your basics. With that you can start work. Cars, no idea I drive the girlfriends Mazda 3, so yeah. But you could get one of them for about $20k I think. As for where to live, thats been covered off. I live lower North Shore and its great for me cause I can go mtbing locally and stuff. But thats just me. Just remembered something about renting places as well, you will probably see rooms for rent, smack in the CBD for silly prices like $150 p/w. Basically you will be sharing a room, probably with a asian student that cant speak english and its not what it seems. Not to mention its illegal. Normally the landlord sets up bunk beds and crams in as many people as possible. I have edited the main post as well. Logan21 fucked around with this message at 12:16 on Jan 2, 2010 |
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Jan 2, 2010 10:21
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