Land for Sale in Australia - but not as we know it

I took this picture last week (click on thumbnail for a larger image) to give you an idea of the size of some of the plots of land that you can pick up here in the Northern Suburbs of Perth.

This latest land release is in a place called Burns Beach which is approx a 40 minute drive north of the Perth CBD.

I think its fair to say that the size of the plots is nothing to write home about. I remember before we came out here that we looked forward to buying a nice big plot of land somewhere near the coast and plonking our house in the middle.

Unfortunately in Perth, It just doesn’t work like this any longer (I think I wouldn’t be wrong in saying that its not really been like that for the last 3 - 5 years or so).

The plots you see in the picture are between 400 - 600 Sqm in size. Burns beach is a pretty nice spot as some of these plots will have potential views of the ocean but for the privelage your paying a premium.

These plots of land are starting at over $500k with the larger plots touching the $1 Million mark. Thats £200 -£400,000+ just for a bit of soil.

Add on top of this the cost of building a house and you’re not going to be left with much change.

The problem stems from the fact that the Western Australian Goverment are not releasing the land quick enough and like most things. Anything in short supply is going to cost a premium.

Although the govenment is being encourage to release more land, I don’t think this is going to happen any time soon.

In the meantime I think when we do look to buying our own home, we’ll be looking at buying somewhere that’s already been built.

After my post the other week about the Australian Exchange Rate things appeared to have been settling down during the last few days with the rate heading back in the right direction.

Note to self - Must pull my bloody finger out

Popularity: 3% [?]

Hello Baby!

Since announcing we were pregnant a number of weeks ago the ‘bump’ has been growing large and strong.

We had our 19 and a bit week scan today and I’m chuffed to bits to say that baby is doing well, growing in all of the right places and was very well behaved as ‘it’ had its picture taken.

I know that some of you may be interested to know what the whole pregnancy set up is like in Australia and I have to say, so far we are very very impressed.

This is actually the third scan we have had since finding out we were pregnant and this one lasted the longest.

We went to the hospital at Joondalup which looks more like a hotel in places with its clean lines and trendy coffee bars.

Todays scan took over half an hour. In the room we had two large TV screens (one for me and the lady doing the canning) and one for the missus. Read more

Popularity: 3% [?]

Australian Exchange rate trends becoming a waiting game

I’ve gotta admit that when it comes down to managing our money and making the most of what we have, I’m a little to laid back for our own good

Case in point, in the last two - three weeks the value of the Australian dollar has strengthened significantly against the UK pound without us even realising.

This is really good if we had loads of money in an Australian bank account and we were planning a holiday back to Blighty as it would mean we would get plenty of UK pounds for our Aussie Buck.

This becomes a problem however when you have the proceeds of a house sale sat in a number of UK bank accounts and you want to start looking at finally bringing the cash back ‘home’ to Australia

The $0.10 cent that the Australian exchange rate has changed in the last 2 - 3 weeks literally accounts for thousands of dollars that we will no longer see should we decide to bring our UK cash onto Australian shores now.

Having said that, the Aussie exchange rates are better (for savers) and we could chuck this same money into an instant access savings account in Australia and earn an extra 2 - 3 % more interest on these same funds then we would back in the UK.

I know its all relative. This time last year the Aussie rate was at about the $2.20 to the £1.00 mark so we’ll have made a few dollars when we look at things this way.

What to do eh? Ahhhhhhh!

Popularity: 3% [?]

Hoons - A Yorkshiremans guide

Hoons, a strange old word and a word I’ve been hearing a lot of since moving to Australia.

Hoon is an Australian and New Zealand colloquial term applied to normally young individuals who typically drive fast and dangerously. The term is also used as a verb: “to hoon” or “to hoon around”, meaning to act in a reckless or otherwise pretty stupid manner.

Although you won’t find hoons around every corner, you will often find evidence of hooning, normally in the form of burnt rubber left behind when the hoons undertake one of their more favourite activities of doing donuts.

So whats with the random picture of a sunny Australian suburb Mark?

The picture I’ve associated with this post (click thumbnail for a larger image) was taken near our house this morning. The actually skid mark was created about two weeks ago.

I was just getting ready when I heard a high performance motor drive past our house. Well, I say high performance but its pretty standard down under.

Many of the motors in Australia have huge engines and can be heard from quite some distance away. For young Australians, bigger is often better so many won’t even consider a car unless its got an engine over four litres in size, many of which are bought only days after they have past their driving tests!

Judging by the rumble I reckon this particular motor was well over 4 Litres and the driver wasn’t out for a late Sunday morning saunter either .

What does the guy do? He slows down to a stop. revs his engine for several seconds until there’s almost fire coming out of the quad exhaust pipe at the back, then takes off in a cloud of smoke leaving about 10 metres of black rubber behind him.

It’s like nothing I ever saw back in the UK although I’m sure the huge residential streets help contribute towards some of this hoonage.

You’ll very rarely find yourself having to do a three point turn on any residential street in Australia and it’s this huge width of the roads and general overall space you’ll find here that I think leads to the false sense of security and general daft behaviour.

Since living in Kinross we’ve also heard hoons racing. Not on our streets but pretty nearby and when travelling through the estate its evident, by the sheer mass of black rubber on the ground that the hoons have been at play.

The signature ‘burnt black rubber’ that the hoons leave behind does have its uses though.

As we get nearer and nearer to finding an area where we eventually want to settle down and buy our own house the signs of hoonage help us to disqualify some of these spots.

I guess at the end of the day, the houses, the suburbs and the gardens look great but if you’re kept awake by hoons doing their stuff at 2am then your perfect house may all of a sudden appear a little less….well, perfect!

Now don’t get me wrong. Hoons are not wide spread all across Australia and you’ll only find small pockets of them in certain suburbs down under but for me, they just seem more common over here then they were in West Yorkshire, perhaps there are only so many donuts you can do in a 1.0 ltr Vauxhall Nova !

Western Australia Police (and police in other states) have recently been given the power to confiscate hoons cars if they are caught in the act.

Whether or not this will improve things and reduce hoon activity then time will only tell but it’s pretty high profile issue for th elocal governments at the moment and I recon it’s only a matter of time before things get sorted.

Popularity: 2% [?]

English Language threshold increased for General Skilled Migration Programme

Federal Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews has announced changes that he says will require higher standards of English among people coming to Australia to study and work.

The changes to the General Skilled Migration programme (GSM) will be introduced on 1 September 2007. People who have made an application for a skilled visa on or before 31 August 2007 will not be affected by the changes.

Changes will include:

* increasing the English language threshold for GSM visa applicants
* rewarding GSM visa applicants who have very good English language proficiency
* greater emphasis on skilled work experience
* introduction of a new temporary work visa for graduates
* simplifying the GSM visa structure.

The threshold level of English language proficiency will be raised from an International English Language Testing System (IELTS) score of 5 (vocational) to 6 (competent) on all four components. However, applicants applying for trade occupations will be required to meet the current threshold of an IELTS score of 5.

Under the points test system, bonus points will be given to applicants who achieve English language scores above the threshold level and additional points will be allocated for skilled work experience in Australia.

Note: Migration Occupation in Demand List (MODL) points will only be awarded to applicants with at least 12 months experience in their nominated occupation or one that is closely related.

To ensure skilled migrants have the skills Australian employers need, there will be tighter requirements on links between study, work experience and nominated occupation.

International students who are unable to meet the new requirements for a permanent skilled visa will have an opportunity to apply for an 18 month Skilled-Graduate (subclass 485) to build on their skills and work experience. This visa will have unrestricted work rights.

The changes aim to ensure that overseas students who decide to stay on in Australia after completing their studies have a much better chance of competing for jobs in their chosen vocation.

There are currently 15 GSM visa subclasses available to people onshore and offshore, who are wishing to apply to migrate to Australia. Under the new visa structure, this will be reduced to nine visa subclasses - four offshore and five onshore. This new structure enables applicants to more easily identify the visa subclass best suited to their circumstances.

Associated Reading:

Post in our forums - Changes to Austrailan General Skilled Migration (GSM) system

Sydney Morning Herald - Migrants must speak English well: govt

News.com.au - Skilled migrants to need better English

The Australian - Skilled migrants to need better English

ABC News Online : Govt toughens English standards for visas

Popularity: 2% [?]

Juniors picking up the accents

As those of you who have been following the Blog for some time will already know, one of the main reasons why we choose to move to Australia when we did is because we wanted our four year old son to get into the Aussie ’system’ at as early a stage as possible.

We’ve always joked that it wouldn’t be long before he’s talking like an Aussie but surprisingly, after only 4 months it’s already started to happen.

The class he is in at Kindergarten has quite a few Australian kids in it, and when you add in the extra ingredient of an Australian teacher it’s no real surprise that he’s started to pick up on the odd word.

With Easter being around the corner, one of his most prominent Aussie-isms is the Word Easter Bunny which is pronounced Easter Baaarny, Daddy has started to become Daaydy, and yes has started to become yea.

It’s kinda cute and we are trying really hard not to stop in our tracks and ask him to say it again when he comes out with a new Aussie-ism just in case the poor little mite becomes paranoid.

Having a daddy originating from Yorkshire I thought that the accent would be so over powering that he’d never pick up on the Aussie accents.

 Even after only one month it looks like the two days a week at Kindi seem to be doing the trick

Popularity: 1% [?]

Lara Bingle Topless GQ photos equal lots of visitors

Nearly a year ago I blogged about the wonders of Laura Bingle (a name I have since found our is spelt Lara Bingle) and how the topless comment I made attracted a lot of extra visitors to our site.

I’ve written about Lara a number of times. Since she first appeared on the ‘Where the bloody hell are you?‘ ads she’s drawn quite a bit of attention.

Whether or not the attention has been down to her good looks or the advertisers tag-lines is debatable but for the visitors to our site it seems the Bingles assets are a big attraction.

The reason for me posting this entry is because the wonders of the Bingle effect have struck again!

I’ve noticed a bit of a spike in traffic to our site recently and having done a little digging around it seems that good old Lara has been in the news again.

Top searches hitting our site in the last few days have been:

laura bingle (looks like I’m not the only one who can’t spell her name correctly). lara bingle naked (hey lets cut to the chase and get to the point). Wanted down under - Finally good to see that we have some folks interested in a move down under still viting our site (hello to you ). laura bingle topless - Back to the boobs again. bingle lara (lets try the backward spelling approach) laura bingle naked (different and incorrect spelling of one of the earlier terms) lara bingle (short and sweet), laura bingle nude (not naked but nude this time) lara bingle topless (more users looking for boobs)!

So, whats with all of the interest in Laura Bingle this time? Well it seems that most of our Lara fans visiting our site originate from within Australian shores.

Some time ago, when the ‘where the bloody hell are you?‘ ads were being shown regularly, and Bingles public profile was at it’s peek, the Australian ‘lads mag’ Zoo magazine showed some piccies of Lara Bingle topless (but appropriately covered).

The magazine advertised the pictures as: “World Exclusive! Bloody Hell! TV ad girl, Lara Bingle’s first ever men’s mag shoot” while an accompanying press release declared: “Lara Bingle Poses Topless for New Men’s Magazine.”

Bingle says she did not pose, topless or exclusively, for the magazine and tried to sue publisher Emap in the Federal Court for defamation, misleading conduct and breach of copyright.

Anyway, to cut a long story short it turns our that she DID pose topless and the pictures appeared for a short time on the German version of GQ Magazine.

The Sydney Morning Herald picked up on the story and reported on the story which in turn caused the GQ webservers to crash as a direct result of all the extra traffic being routed to the site.

The crash resulted in even more news which resulted in more traffic to GQ which resulted in GQ removing the pic.

The lack of the offending pics is what appears to be leading Bingle fans on their search for pictures of the top totties assets (damn, I’m starting to sound like a daily star reporter).

Anyway, a GDU toned down version of the offending picture can be found here (Lara Bingle Topless GQ photos). Was the search worth it?

I have a feeling it’s probably not and if you want the uncesored version…well you’ll need to wait for the guys back at GQ to sort their servers out

Popularity: 42% [?]

White and Company finally get our stuff down under

The 19th of November 2006 was a pretty momentous date for us as it was the day that White and Company packed and removed 96 boxes worth of stuff and we finally felt that we were on our way to a new life down under (the following week we were).

Over four months later, we have been reunited with our 96 boxes of ’stuff’.

I think it’s fair to say that 20 weeks is a lot longer then we originally expected we’d have to wait before being reunited with our possessions again.

Admittedly, we had a shared container which meant it may have been sat at White and Companies depot for a little while whilst they waited to fill the other half with another customer’s possessions but 20 weeks? Phew!

In general the service from White and Company has been pretty good but like our good chums at the Halifax, they seemed sadly lacking in the proactivity department as time progressed.

There had been a number of delays (for whatever reason) once our container arrived in Fremantle and it was unfortunate that we were never given a realistic updates from White and Company or their Aussie counterparts to advise us what was going on.

It was only when we phoned the guys (several times) that we got any kind of update. Still at least it’s all here now.

Is everything still in one piece?

Before we made our own journey down under, I had read a number of horror stories from people who had shipped some or all of their own stuff out to Australia.

Some folks wrote about the time when their whole shipping container got tossed over the edge of the ship during high winds. Some spoke about how all of their boxes were ruined by heavy handed customs officials whilst others warned that you should prepare to have some of your stuff looted by crooked thieves!

I’m really not sure how true some of these stories were but at time of typing I’m relieved to say that everything appears to be accounted for, in the sense that we have the same number of boxes we left with and as you can see in the picture (which shows about 10% of the boxes) they are in good condition.

All is not perfect and there has been some confusion however.

Who changed our boxes?

Bizarrely, some of our boxes have been repacked. We’re not sure why or by whom but some of the stuff we packed has been unpacked from the originally boxes and repacked in new ones without any kind of explanation.

In addition, the inventory we were provided by White and company in the UK which was effectively a list with box numbers on one side and contents on the other doesn’t really match up. It seems that at some point between leaving our house in the UK and arriving in Australia many of the boxes have been renumbered!

Those Essential items were not really….well, essential

It’s not going to be for some time before we can verify that everything has arrived in one piece.

Since undertaking the worlds biggest shop and buying sundry other ‘essential’ items, a lot of the stuff will remain in its boxes until we make the final move from rented accommodation into our own home.

We should still have a decent idea about the state of everything within the next couple of weeks though as we’ll still need to check every box so we can report any breakages or losses back to White and Company.

Even though we only brought out half a shipping containers worth of stuff, in hindsight, we could have left a lot more back in the UK.

Because it takes so long for thing to get out here it’s only natural that you buy the things you need in order to get by. Once you’ve got by for four months you can pretty much manage without all of those ‘essentials’ and you start asking yourself why you brought any of this stuff in the first place.

Having said that, items like junior’s favourite toys and teddies, our photographs, DVD / CD collection, and maternity cloths for the missus have been welcomed back with open arms.

Anyway, it’s done now and it’s another thing crossed off the list. I’ll write another entry in the future to give my final thoughts (Jerry Springer style) on White and company once we’ve done a full review on the condition and content (or lack) within the boxes.

There is also a small mater of a refund due from White and Company that we’ll need to chase.

We were quoted and paid for half a container but by the time we had packed everything we realised that we had actually used a fair bit less.

It was a condition of White and Company doing the move that we had to pay the full amount upfront and they’ll refund the difference if there was one.

As they’ve not come back to us about this (surprise surprise) it looks like it’ll but up to us to chase this. Hopefully there will be nothing untoward to report

Popularity: 2% [?]

Cat Update - Charlie and Jeff take on Australia

Well, it’s been a while since I blogged about the furry felines so I thought I’d write a quick update to let those of you interested know how the cats have settled in down under.

To be honest, I’ve been pretty surprised how easily and quickly both ‘Charlie and Jeff’ have taken to their new surroundings.

Both cats have got into a bit of a routine although I have to say that a large part of this routine appears to be associated with finding an appropriately cool and shady spot for a snooze.

The non resting hours are spent meowing for food. Teasing the dogs, which have recently appeared next door and chasing flies.

Charlie, the younger cat has been the more adventurous and regularly disappears over the fence, only to be reappear some two to three hours later for some food and a quick power nap before venturing out again.

Jeff, the older of the two seems happier within the confines of the garden. This may be due to the 6 foot + high fence enclosing the garden which Jeff struggles to jump over (unlike his younger housemate) but even when Jeff ventures out of the front door to the unrestricted front garden, he very rarely venture more then a couple of metres away.

One thing for sure is that neither of the cats enjoys the heat.

During the really warm days both cats looked truly uncomfortable. Even with the air conditioning on they struggled to find a suitably cool spot.

One thing about cats is that they really struggle to get rid the excess heat. Unlike dogs cats don’t really pant and the only place they secrete sweat from is their paws.

On a couple of occasions we thought we’d lost one of the cats (normally Charlie), only to find him hidden in a cupboard or, on one occasion sprawled out across the bottom of one of the shower trays in the bathroom.

We tried our best to help. Ice cubes in the water bowl offered a little relief and pretty good results were had applying a small amount of cool water by hand to their coats.

It was pretty obvious that during these really hot days neither cat were particularly comfortable though.

Still, it is now officially autumn and although it’s still hot, we’ve not had the extreme temperatures that we saw for a few weeks now and both boys are spending a little more time outdoors.

Both cats appear to be enjoying the slightly more bearable temperatures and we’re still chuffed that we made the decision to bring them with us.

The cats are members of the family (insert godfather theme music here) and I recon they’re just as happy to be living in Australia as we are.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Current Australian Immigration processing lead time as of April 2007

Firstly, because of the number of questions normally raised in response to these updates I have turned comments off.

Please use our forums for any visa related enquiries. You’ll get a much quicker response this way. To visit our forums please click here.

Now onto the update: The ASPC is still experiencing some delays in receipting and acknowledging applications (shock horror)

Please note that these delays do not affect the date on which a valid application is recorded as having been received and this is the date used for processing purposes.

Processing of an application will usually commence within seven (7) working days of its receipt by the department. This means that an application is receipted, acknowledged and a file number is allocated.

Once this has occurred a case officer is appointed to assess each application as soon as possible, however, the ASPC receives a large number of applications and you will not be contacted immediately.

Applications lodged on or before the dates shown below have been allocated to case officers for further processing.

ONSHORE APPLICATIONS

Student/Graduate

Paper based applications: 13 December 2006 (subclass 880), 31 October
2006 (subclass 881) and 24 November 2006 (subclass 882)

E-lodged (online) applications: 22 December 2006 (subclass 880) and 11
September 2006 (subclass 881) and 11 September 2006 (subclass 882)

Skilled Independent Regional (Provisional) (SIR VISA)

Paper based applications: 1 November 2006
E-lodged (online) applications: 18 December 2006

New Zealand

All applications: 5 September 2006 (all subclasses)

OFFSHORE APPLICATIONS

Applications for Classes BN, BQ, BR and UZ (subclasses 134, 136, 137, 138,
139 and 496)

Priority Applications: 27 June 2006
Non-Priority Applications: 13 June 2006

Skilled Independent Regional (Provisional) (SIR VISA)

Paper based applications: 30 August 2006
E-lodged (online) applications: 01 February 2007

If a visa application was made more than two weeks before the relevant date shown above and you have not been contacted by a case officer please contact the Adelaide Skilled Processing Centre from the web page http://www.immi.gov.au/contacts/visa-enquiries/professionals.htm

Applications eligible for priority processing

1. Applicants whose nominated occupation is on the Migration Occupations in Demand List (MODL)

2. For applicants whose nominated occupation is not on the MODL, applications for any of the following visas are given priority:

a) Skill Matching (Migrant) (Class BR) - Subclass 134 - Skill Matching
b) Skilled - Independent (Migrant) (Class BN) – Subclass 137 - Skilled - State/Territory-nominated Independent
c) Skilled - Australian-sponsored (Migrant) (Class BQ) - Subclass 139 - Skilled - Designated Area Sponsored
d) Skilled - Independent Regional (Provisional) (Class UX) – Subclass 495 - Skilled - Independent Regional (Provisional)
e) Skilled Designated Area-sponsored (Provisional) (Class UZ) – Subclass 496 - Skilled Designated Area-sponsored (Provisional)
f) Skilled New Zealand (Residence) visa class (Class DB) - Subclass 863 - Skilled - Onshore Regional-Sponsored New Zealand Citizen
g) Skilled Australian-sponsored Overseas Student (Residence) (Class DE) - Subclass 882 - Skilled Designated Area-sponsored Overseas Student

Eligibility for priority processing does not mean that any processing requirements can be waived.

Offshore Applicants can now initiate Health and Character Checks before being allocated a case officer

The inclusion of health forms on the department’s website means that applicants can reduce the time taken to finalise the application by commencing health and character checking before their application is allocated to a case officer, however, applicants and migration agents should be aware that:

o Applicants are responsible for all costs associated with medical examinations and providing police clearances;
o Health examinations and police clearances have limited validity periods, generally for a period of 12 months;
o If clearances expire before the application is finalised they may be requested again, and must be provided at the applicant’s cost;
o The ASPC may need to undertake other checking in respect of the application that can delay a decision; and
o Undertaking health examinations and providing police clearances does not guarantee an application will be successful.

Applicants and Agents can monitor which applications are currently being allocated for assessing through this e-mail service before deciding when to undertake health and character procedures.

If you decide to undertake these checks before being allocated a case officer it is suggested that these checks be initiated when allocation dates are within three months of your date of lodgement.

IT IS IMPORTANT TO NOTE THAT:

Applicants are not obliged to undertake these checks now and may wait until receiving a further request from the department.

If any applicant is pregnant - please contact this office for further advice before any person included in the application commences health or character checking.

Non-migrating family members of applicants for a SIR visa should not undertake health and character checking unless specifically requested to do so.

Medical Examinations

Information on health checking requirements and medical forms can be obtained at http://www.immi.gov.au/allforms/health-requirements/index.htm

Please pay careful attention to the information available on this page including Form 1071i detailing health requirements for permanent entry to Australia. Visa applicants in Australia must contact Health Services Australia (HSA) to arrange a health examination.

Applicants outside of Australia must arrange their health examination with a panel doctor and/or radiologist nominated by the Australian Government. A list of panel doctors and radiologists is at http://www.immi.gov.au/contacts/panel-doctors/index.htm

Please note that the panel doctor is required to send all medical results to the Local Clearance Unit in Australia and not give them to applicants or their representatives. Information about the Local Clearance Unit including their address is available at http://www.immi.gov.au/contacts/australia/processing-centres/lcu-sydney.htm

Before attending a health examination applicants need to:

1. Print off the required numbers of forms 26 and/or 160 to present to the panel doctor and radiologist; and
2. Complete the “Office use only” box to indicate the visa class applied for (eg subclass 136), the file reference number and / or the ICSE Request ID number on each form.

Police Clearance Certificates

Police Clearance Certificates are required, for each member of the applicant’s family unit aged 16 years or over, regardless of whether or not they are migrating. Clearances are required for each country the applicant has lived in for a cumulative total of 12 months or more in the last 10 years. Applicants should also provide an address history for any other relevant persons who need to satisfy the character requirements as part of this application.

For information on obtaining police clearances please refer to the Form 47P Character Requirements available at http://www.immi.gov.au/allforms/pdf/47p.pdf

Finalising Applications

Please note that the information provided above is not about the time it will take to process an application to completion. The time it is expected to take to process a General Skilled Migration visa application to completion is detailed in the department’s service standards. Service standards are specified for applications lodged with complete documentation. Individual cases may take longer than the service standard depending on the completeness and complexity of the case. For further information on service standards see: service standards

Popularity: 2% [?]