Why should I not move to Australia?

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#468691 13-May-2011 12:14

Well my niece and her boyfriend are going, both just out or university both cannot get full time jobs part time yes but it got pretty frustrating for them they live in Tauranga so that might be a reason why jobs are hard don't know, but you would think with their degrees they would get a job anywhere. So he applied for the same job in Australia and got it -full time with pay doubled compare to here. So they off to Aussie next month.

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#468694 13-May-2011 12:22

Just go.

Get out into the big bad world and experience life. Whats the worst that can happen ? You go, you dont like it and you come back.

We went to London with a backpack each and $10K on a credit card. We found a floor to crash on for the first couple of weeks and we both had work and a flat in North London within a month.

Six years later we had two kids, a mortgage, two cars and a cat. We came back because my wife is a dutch/kiwi and she wanted to come home for the kids.

But in all seriousness I wish we had stayed. There is so much more to experience in Europe than here and its only once you leave do you realise what youre missing out on and just how far away NZ is from everything.

Ill always reget not living and working in Amsterdam (where her family are), what a fantastic place that is and the Dutch people are just brilliant. Although I couldnt speak the language I picked up enough to follow a conversation and they all speak superb English anyway.

Pack up your bags, sell everything and go and have a ball.

nigelj

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#468695 13-May-2011 12:22

gehenna: Health care costs are relative. When I lived in Melbourne I often paid $50 per doctor visit but pay $35 here in NZ. They have Medicare though so sometimes (seemed to be random) you could get reimbursed the cost of your visit...not often in my exp though.

Prescriptions are also relative - something that costs me $3 for 3 months supply here in NZ was $40 per month over there in Melbourne. Then again something that costs me $70 a month here in NZ was costing $20 a month over there.

It's not a "grass is greener" situation as most people think. There are weird ways of doing things over in Oz, weird costs that you wouldn't expect. Plus having to carry cash around everywhere is a PAIN given their coins are so huge! Hardly anywhere accepts small eftpos transactions so going to a cafe can be a real nightmare when it comes time to pay and they tell you "$20 minimum for eftpos".

Didn't want to comment on prescriptions myself, because the funding models are really weird and I just don't understand them. But for doctors fee, as a couple of concrete examples...

6 Feb 09, doctors fee: $108, qualified for a $63.75 Medicare rebate/claim, total cost A$44.25
16 Feb 09, doctors fee: $61, qualified for $33.55 rebate, total cost ~A$27.45 (a follow up for the previous visit)

Sometimes it's cheaper, sometimes it's more expensive

As for what I was saying about blood tests... I found an invoice from the Lab (note they don't tell you up front when you go how much it'll cost) for $115.05, for what I can remember as 3 tubes of blood (sure, there were a lot of tests, but still about the same number a NZ doctor would order). I'd have to hunt around for receipts from Medicare for the refund amount, because they didn't do direct credit rebates for lab tests when I was there. Queuing at Medicare is like at ANZ (take a ticket) but the offices are normally always pretty busy it's not something you can easily & quickly do during a lunch break most of the time.

Also, if you are lucky and only have minor complaints etc, sometimes you can get bulk-billed appointment slots etc. But as far as I'm concerned, medical costs were like a lottery, especially if your doctor wanted to continually keep repeating the exact same tests.

But I'd definitely like to point out, that with Australia, it likely varies quite a bit region to region. My experiences are of Brisbane City, Sydney could be totally different.

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#468696 13-May-2011 12:28

Did anyone see that supermarket price comparison a week or so ago on TV? (Campbell Live I think). They compared prices of a bundle of groceries in 4 different cities: Auckland was something like $75, London $66, LA a bit less again, and Sydney was $120. (Someone may remember the actual numbers??)

gehenna

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#468699 13-May-2011 12:40

There is a bigger "market" culture in Oz though. More people go to markets to get their meat and veg. Supermarkets are more for the staples. When shopping at markets you can spend very little and get a huge amount of food.

ekud

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#468725 13-May-2011 13:54

If it wasnt due to my kids i think i would move, more opportunities etc etc

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#468768 13-May-2011 14:42

Old flatmate move to Canberra (blurgh) a couple of years ago, walked into pretty much the exact same job he was doing in NZ but the pay was a tad over twice as much.

If you're an IT specialist and you've no real ties in NZ, then it almost seems silly _not_ to move to Australia given the demand and massive pay disparity.

I've been eyeing up Melbourne for a while, good motorcycling, incredible shopping for the wimmenfolk, Victoria market is brilliant. The trick is being able to end up better off taking everything into consideration. As long as I've got broadband and some twisty roads, I'm happy. More money for more petrol in the tank = a good thing.

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robbyp

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#468783 13-May-2011 14:55

From what I have heard food in oz is more expensive on average. Some things maybe cheaper.

They do also have other taxes over there when you look at the big picture. For example if you are looking at settling, and buying a house, they do have stamp duty and CGT. Also there houses in the centres are a lot more than in NZ.

Also their retirement scheme is asset and means tested, it is not universal. I am sure there are other things too where NZ beats them on.

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#468796 13-May-2011 15:11

We lived there between 1992-2004 (Sydney, and Central Coast NSW), when we moved back home to spend more time with family. For the most part, we really loved our time over there, and I took quite a significant pay cut to return back to NZ (at the time it made sense to do so, for various personal reasons). We're now discussing whether we want to move back again, this time to Queensland.

In our 12 years there I saw quite a few spiders (Redbacks were common, as were Huntsman spiders), but I didn't see a single snake outside of captivity (although my wife had a scare with a Red-bellied Black snake on our back patio).

And Australians are much nicer than people make them out to be. They are for the most part very friendly and genuine (provided you step away from Sydney ;-)), and they seem to enjoy having a big brother/little brother relationship with Kiwis. I even got to the point there where I would willingly cheer on Aussie sports teams (provided they weren't playing NZ, of course). But be warned: you will get a LOT of sheep shagging jokes thrown your way, most of them not very original.

GeekGuy

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#468824 13-May-2011 16:07

I have lived off and on since the 80's in Oz and have only ever seen 2 snakes in that time.
One was in the CBD in Brisbane (a common garden snake) and the other right outside our back sliding door (possible tree snake).
They are there but you hardly ever see them.

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#468845 13-May-2011 17:04

Bee:

Salary/income is the same or better (before and after tax?)
Rent /house prices are the same or better
Food is cheaper
Phone / internet is cheaper

(all based mainly on anecdotal evidence)
The politicians in NZ don't seem to have a clue what to do about the economy anymore.

Cons:

Snakes
All my family lives in NZ (would I really miss them???)
full of Australians

i've recently moved the family to Oz for job opportunities.

salary: in general 30% higher before tax. after tax maybe 35% higher overall.

rent: more expensive depending on where you live. you can get 'cheap' 2bd apartments just outside melbourne CBD for $360/wk. you would pay $800-$1200/wk for a 3 bd house in a 'good' area.

house prices: you're looking at $300,000 - $500,000 PER bedroom for a house in a city, depending on which city and which suburb. eg a 60 yr old 3 bd house would cost about 800,000 to just under $1 MIL.

food: proper cafes and cheap dining you're looking at $25-$35 a plate standard. i eat at the cheapest shops and that's $9-$15 for bowl of noodles. milk: $4-$5.00 for 2L (branded vs brandless)

phone and internet is definitely cheaper if you're a high volume user.

aussies waste way more money than NZ politicians. spent $1.5Bil to change to electronic ticketing for melbourne trams and no one uses it now. paying Malaysia $100 Mil to give us 5000 refugees (from Malaysia) in exchange for 1,000 of ours. giving away ?$10Bil in UN aid so that Kevin Rudd can become UN big shot. etc ....

aren't aussies better looking due to cross breeding i mean cosmopolitanship?

i miss NZ family.

look - you're only young once. but note the grass is never greener on the other side. only different weeds to handle.

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SepticSceptic

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#468853 13-May-2011 17:38

Miles away from any beach ....

robbyp

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#468858 13-May-2011 18:00

Spiders are definitely an issue, as everyone who has gone over there has a story about spiders. They are usually hanging around in the rubbish bin lids.

alasta

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#468866 13-May-2011 18:11

For me the two main barriers would be my friends in New Zealand, and the logistical challenges of physically relocating. Relocating to another country isn't straightforward - you'll potentially need to arrange transport of your personal items, sell your car here and buy another one over there, open foreign bank accounts, set up insurance, find somewhere to stay temporarily when you get there, find somewhere to eventually live permanently, connect your phone to a local provider, learn all the local laws and regulations that might affect you, and on it goes. Oh, and having no credit history over there might prove to be an additional challenge.

I worked trans-tasman in 2008 and 2010 (mainly in Melbourne, occasionally in Brisbane) and my employers kept bugging me to relocate there permanently but personally I much prefer the lifestyle in NZ and having had the chance to get out and about a lot while I was in Australia I couldn't see many compelling reasons to move there. Yes, I could earn more money over there but frankly I earn enough here to have a reasonably comfortable lifestyle so I don't feel as if I need to sacrifice what I've got here just to chase the dollars.

gehenna

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#468867 13-May-2011 18:11

robbyp: Spiders are definitely an issue, as everyone who has gone over there has a story about spiders. They are usually hanging around in the rubbish bin lids.

No spider stories for me unfortunately. Lived in Melbourne CBD for a few years, and in the burbs for a few years too but never once saw a spider - except a white tail on my pillow but you get the same here nowadays.

Would have loved to see a big spider :)

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