If you're new here, you may be interested to know that you can receive all of our latest articles directly to your inbox. Click Here for more info. We promise to keep your email safe and will use it for only this purpose

Just an update for the FAQ

An agent is very useful if you have the money (costs are usually in the thousands of A$) but not the time, or if you have an unusual case (unclear work experience, bad criminal or visa history, medical problems etc).

If you are willing to do some research, for example on our forums and your case is pretty straightforward, it is very well manageable without an agent.

However, it might be a good idea to have an agent go through your skills assessment application and/or your visa application just before you send them off, just to check that you haven’t forgotten something or did something stupid. Many agents are willing to do this for only a few hundred dollars.
Read the full story

Article Popularity: 6%

Hi Guys

Today we are pleased to announce the launch of our Australian immigration advice forums.

I have had quite a few enquiries from folks using our contact form with questions relating to their move down under.

I’ve answered these questions as best as I can but thought it would be useful to have a forum so that everyone can see the responses given.

In addition to this, a number of our new forums act as gateways to the Usenet communities. You can therefore use these forums to access the Australia and New Zealand immigration news groups from anywhere in the world without having to worry about installing some fandangled newsreader software on your PC. Read the full story

Article Popularity: 6%

The weather has been traditionally British recently, Lots of snow and very cold (averaging all of 2 – 3 decrees Celsius. However the 2006 Commonwealth games started in Melbourne yesterday and it was great to wake up to some live footage of some of the sports over there.

The weather appears to be pretty pleasant in Melbourne, averaging a very comfortable 75 Degrees Fahrenheit most days. Saying that, back on the other side of the country in Perth its forecast to be in the 90’s everyday for the rest of this week

As Melbourne is getting some good exposure at the moment, I thought you folks might be interested in a little more information about the city (clicking the images below to open a bigger version in a new window if your interested).
Read the full story

Article Popularity: 6%

Oh the irony, after 40 years the UK has finally decided to review its immigration policies by adopting a Australian-style points-based immigration system.

The system will be put in place to attract the “brightest and the best” from the developing world to work and settle in Britain.

A slightly flawed assumption however is that the workers from the newly enlarged European Union will mostly fill low-skilled labour shortages. The door will in future be closed to unskilled migrants from the developing world outside the EU, however any unskilled migrants from the EU can still pop into the UK whenever they please.

The white paper, Making Migration Work for Britain, published yesterday also proposed that financial bonds guaranteeing their return home should be demanded from migrants whose personal circumstances or route of migration suggest they may breach the immigration rules. Employers will also be expected to ensure that migrant workers comply with the rules of their visas.

The system will reward those with money to invest and the most highly skilled migrants who come to work in Britain with the right to bring their families and a faster route to citizenship than at present.

This contrasts sharply with provision for a very limited number of temporary low-skilled workers from the developing world who will be able to come for a maximum of 12 months, will have to leave their family at home, and may have their wages paid into their bank accounts back home to ensure they leave the country at the end of their contract.

The system will also include changes in the way overseas students come to Britain, and the working holidaymakers scheme, which has seen more than 70,000 Australians, New Zealanders and South Africans come to Britain, will be open to far more countries.

Hmmm, this all sounds somewhat familiar. A little too late for us but hopefully longer term the changes if implemented successfully will bring longer term benefits for the UK.

Article Popularity: 3%

Oh well, here we are. Almost three weeks on and we’ll be leaving the beutiful country of Australia to travel back to the UK tomorrow afternoon at 4pm Aussie time.

Well probably spend our last day at Kings Park before heading back home to watch the sunset at about 7pm. Then it’ll be time to eat whats left of the food in the fridge.

We had the brother-in-law, his missus and their son over to stay from Sydney in the past week. They really enjoyed the laid back lifestyle of Western Australia although they were surprised how expensive property had become.

The view from the ‘East side’ seems to be that you can still pick up properties for £50,000.

Now although you may be able to do this in the outback the number of Immigrants moving to the west coast is slowly starting to push prices upwards.

Take Sorrento and Hillarys for example. The number of $1 Million + houses being build and sold is staggering although even for these properties, similar properties in Sydney would cost you 4 to 5 times this amount.

Having said all this, compared to the UK, what you get for your hard earned money over here is significantly better. A house of ‘mansion’ proportions could still be yours for under £200,000 if you had this sort of cash to hand.

I think we’ve made the best of our time here in WA. We’ve got a really good feel for the different suburbs, we’ve identified a school for our son. We’ve got a good feel for house prices and what we’ll get for our cash. From a work perspective I’ve also met with a number of recruiters who’ll I’ll continue to keep contact with when I get back to the UK.

I’ve also taken hundreds of picks which I’ll upload to the site when we get back later in the week.

For now, more updates when we get back to the UK. Just a short 20 hour flight and we’ll be back in Blighty. Oh joy!

I’ve added some pictures of some of the houses we visited so check out this post titled – What will you get for £150k in Australia for more info.

Article Popularity: 3%

Well g’day from down under

I was hoping that I may still be able to post small updates and it looks like, due to the wonders of technology I can.

Well, actually, thanks to the wonders of smartphone technology.. For anyone remotely interested. I’m currently using my SPV M2000 to post updates to getting down under (google SPV M2000 for more info).

I had roaming activated on the phone so I’ll be posting via the Vodafone Australia network. I wasn’t sure if the roaming had been activated in time as I never got the SIM update I was promised but thankfully it appears to have worked.

Not sure how much the GPRS roaming costs will be but the posts won’t be that big since using the small thumb keypad on the m2000 isn’t particularly conjusive to typing massive entries.

Anyway, here I am in Sorrento Perth. Its 6:50 am which is a whole 2 hours later then it was when I woke up yesterday morning. Jet lag is a curious thing but I slowly appear to be getting over it.

Staying at the London Heathrow Hilton was an interesting experience. Nice hotel but damn, very expensive. The plan was to use the Hilton to reduce the stress of rushing to the airport first thing in the morning. The hotel links directly to terminal 4 at Heathrow airport so you can stroll over from your room, check in and then stroll back to your hotel room to relax until about an hour before departure where you can then wonder on back to your departure gate for your flight.

Only problem was, Singapore Airlines departs from Terminal 3 at Heathrow airport. Doh!

So, one train ride to terminal 3, a taxi back to the hotel to check out and a second train ride back to terminal 3 later, we were checked in.

Then we had to wait 45 minutes to get through security (due to some increased security checks…cue increased stress levels) culminating in a 1 mile run to the gate (literally).

The gate was displayed as ‘closing’ as we made our final dash and we could only run so fast due the the limited sprinting abilities of our 3 year old little boy. .

It reminded me a little of an old TV program that I used to watch called ‘treasure hunt’ presented by Anika Rice (spelling!) where she had a set amount of time to find clues which she would do before shouting ’stop the clock, stop the clock!’ But we made it, and theres nothing like getting yourself, hot, bothered and sweaty in preperation for a 17 hour plane journey!

The flight itself was excellent. We have flown with Singapore Airlines 6 times now and I would highly recommend them. The inflight entertainment is excellent although with a three year old to look after, we didn’t see that much of it.

The flight time was a little shorter then I was expecting. Just over 12 hours from London to Singapore and then 5 hours flat from Singapore to Perth. It’s longer by about 2 and a half hours on the return (something to due with jet streams apparently).Our little boy slept for approx 4 hours of the first leg and 2 hours of the second which really helped us with the flight. Last year when he was just over 2 he didn’t sleep at all! Saying that, neither myself or the missus slept this time, however, reduced inflight stress made this flight a much better one and we were both really proud of how well our little boy did this time around

So, we’ve landing in Perth, go though immigration and get our visa’s stamped. Two years of blood sweat and tears and we’ve made it. We are now officially Australian Residents!!

I actually thought our Visa’s (the sticker they insert in your passport) would be stamped. However the lady in immigration just stamped our passports as normal.

She explained it’s the date on the stamp which is this important thing. The paper Perminant residency Visa is the Actual Visa but the date on the stamp in our passports validates the visa as it was dated within 12 months of issue.

We now have a further 5 years to settle perminantly in Australia although we know it will be much sooner.

So, the perminant residents pick up the hire car from Hertz and drive the 45 minutes north from Perth Airport to the beautiful town of Sorrento.

The drive was great and we were thankful for the aircon. It was 32 degrees C when we arrive at 2:30pm but who’s complaining. After the miserable weather we’e had in the UK of late it was a seriouisly refreshing change.

The layout of the highway network in and around Perth seems really well organised and pretty logical, almost modular. With my co-driver/primary navigator at the side of me, it wasn’t long before we came over the brow of a hill and caught our first glimpse of the Indian Ocean and Hillarys boat harbor…Stunning!

Off to the estate agents to pick up the keys for the house were renting here in Sorrento. Get to the houe (nice!) drop the bags off, back in the car again to find a shop for some grub (it was getting near dinner time) and some wine of course! Back to the house and time to finally sit down and relax.

First impressions of Sorrento? Fantastic. Compared to the East Coast of Australia Sorrento seems so much more chilled out. Lots of people chatting and walking along the beaches. There are mainly residential areas lining the beaches in Sorrento. Dee Why beach near Sydney where we stayed last year by comparison seemed alot more commercial. More cafes and shops.

I know there will be places more like Dee Why in Western Australia to, but for the time being I’m liking what I’m seeing.

Time to check out now, typing on this small ‘thumb board’ is going to leave my thumbs permanently deformed if I’m not careful. However I’ll post further updates as our Aussie adventure continues.

Small sidenote: My roaming charges came to over £100! Next time I’ll get an Australian SIM card

Article Popularity: 4%

Ok, for starters (and because I didn’t start this site until we actually received our Visa’s. I thought it might be a little useful to give a little background about how and why we ended up getting to the stage where we are now

Please also keep in mind; I’m a pretty typical bloke with an average education. I may not necessarily have the literally talents of Shakespeare or J. K. Rowling so please stick with me through the typo’s. Please also keep in mind that we’ve done a lot before we got here. As a result, some of these earlier sections may be a little long but I’ll type as fast as I can to try and get up to date

Anyhow, I won’t get to heavily involved in the specifics about how we did this, how we did that. However as the site matures I’ll make sure that all these areas are covered and will link to and from certain sections of this article to help you guys navigate around the site.

I guess it all started in the summer of 2004. I took voluntary redundancy from the company I was currently working for at the time. My wife and I had been to Australia (Sydney) in 2002 to catch up with my brother-in-law who has lived and worked in Sydney as a permanent resident for over 7 years.

We fell in love with the place, the weather was fantastic, the sky was blue and probably most strikingly, the friendliness of the people and the Australian culture as a whole took our breath away.
Read the full story

Article Popularity: 4%

The primary basis of Australian culture up until the mid-20th century was Anglo-Celtic, although distinctive Australian features had been evolving from the environment and indigenous culture. Over the past 50 years, Australian culture has been strongly influenced by American popular culture (particularly television and cinema), large-scale immigration from non-English-speaking countries, and Australia’s Asian neighbours.

Australia has a long history of visual arts, starting with the cave and bark paintings of its indigenous peoples. From the time of European settlement, a common theme in Australian art has been the Australian landscape, seen in the works of Arthur Streeton, Arthur Boyd and Albert Namatjira, among others. The traditions of indigenous Australians are largely transmitted orally and are closely tied to ceremony and the telling of the stories of the Dreamtime.
Read the full story

Article Popularity: 4%

Most of the estimated 20.4 million Australians are descended from 19th- and 20th-century immigrants, the majority from Britain and Ireland. Australia’s population has quadrupled since the end of World War I , spurred by an ambitious immigration program.

In 2001, the five largest groups of the 27.4% of Australians who were born overseas were from the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Italy, Vietnam and China. Following the abolition of the White Australia policy in 1973, numerous government initiatives have been established to encourage and promote racial harmony based on a policy of multiculturalism. Australia’s population has increased by about 60 times since European settlement.
Read the full story

Article Popularity: 3%

The first human habitation of Australia is estimated to have occurred between 42,000 and 48,000 years ago. The first Australians were the ancestors of the current Indigenous Australians; they arrived via land bridges and short sea-crossings from present-day Southeast Asia. Most of these people were hunter-gatherers, with a complex oral culture and spiritual values based on reverence for the land and a belief in the Dreamtime. The Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, inhabited the Torres Strait Islands and parts of far-north Queensland; they possess distinct cultural practices from the Aborigines.

The first undisputed recorded European sighting of the Australian continent was made by the Dutch navigator Willem Jansz, who sighted the coast of Cape York Peninsula in 1606. During the 17th century, the Dutch charted the whole of the western and northern coastlines of what they called New Holland, but made no attempt at settlement. In 1770, James Cook sailed along and mapped the east coast of Australia, which he named New South Wales and claimed for Britain. The expedition’s discoveries provided impetus for the establishment of a penal colony there following the loss of the American colonies that had previously filled that role.
Read the full story

Article Popularity: 4%