Australia.WTF?

WTF - 6 months already???

2008-04-30T16:27:00.003+10:00

We've now been in Australia for 6 months! Can't believe it, but it's true. but still fresh off the boat, as my new Aussie mates jokingly say...

What you want:
a new life in Australia

What you think:
It's going to be tough, wonderful, adventurous, happy, sad, hard work and fun

What they DON'T tell you:
you're right ;-)

It's all of the above, but not a single second of regret having made the move. Things are, of course, very different. It IS a new country, with a very different culture and ways of doing things, but it is also a civilised, first-world, english speaking, proud, patriotic, economically sound place to live.

There's loads of work if you want it and very few problems compared to good old SA.

To illustrate:
2 weeks ago the front page news carried the headline 'Golf widows unhappy' or something similar.
THAT'S exactly why we moved here - if the biggest news they could suck off the end of their thumbs was that the men are playing too much golf, and it's THE headline of the day, we (Australians) have no worries! I shudder to think what the news was in South Africa...

Loving it! Come on over...

'it's easy to live here, you'll love it' - Melbourne Cab Driver, aged 57, 2nd generation Australian, on the way to Melbourne airport, May 2007

He's right.

WTF - Q & A

2008-04-02T15:13:00.001+11:00

What you want:
Some general information on the day to day expenses

What you think:
Where am I going to get this?

What they DON'T tell you:
Here!

Some general info I've put together for some friends that are coming over...

Q - Medical & Hospital insurance/cover - Is this government medical?
A - Yes -Medicare if you're a permanent resident. Very expensive privately, so make sure you get medical included when you get employed if you come over on a 457 VISA.

Q - Do you pay for medical if there on a work permit (before Residency is through)?
A - yes

Q - How much?
A - The doctors , dentists etc are not regulated, so you should discuss with them before treatment. Also prescriptions are the same. Quite pricey.

Q - Pharmacies - Dischem equivalent?
A - yes - Chemist Warehouse http://www.epharmacy.com.au/chemistwarehouse/welcome.asp

Q - Cars - buying. Cash? Or deposit and credit?
A - Both. 10 % deposit.

Q - How much deposit if latter option. How does credit vetting / rating work?
A - Need 100 points. This is proof of address, copy of Visa, proof of employment, copy of SA drivers license.

Q - Car Insurance - More or less an average amount?
A - We pay $98 for house and car. see http://www.realinsurance.com.au/ . MUCH Cheaper.

Q - What is the transport system like (buses, trains, trams)?
A - excellent. all the above avialable - trams only within about 10km radius. clean and on time.

Q - Petrol/fuel price per litre?
A - Varies - cheapest on Tue/Wed morning - around $1.36 then more expensive towards the weekend - around $1.46.

Q - Process of getting your driver's license, some kind of ID card?
A - Have a look at http://www.vicroads.vic.gov.au/Home/Licensing/NewResidentsVisitors/OverseasDriversLicences.htm

Q - Groceries - do they have equivalent of Pick & Pay or Woollies
A - Yes - Coles, Safeway. No Woollies or equivalent found so far. Markets are great - good quality food, meat and veg.

Q - What do you spend on groceries per week / month?
A - around $600 to $800 per month.

Q - Clothes - equivalent of Woollies, Edgars, Foschini.... or just name brand stuff?
A - Mostly brand name, but also large discount stores such as dfo (http://www.dfo.com.au/)

Q - Cost of a Starbucks cuppa
A - Dunno, but average good coffee around $3.50

Q - Eating out for two - decent restaurant, average bottle of white wine
A - Pricey - around $50 to $60. Wine is $8 per glass, beer around $6, spirits around $8

Q - Water, electricity, gas bill per month (Stoves - gas or electric?)
A - water - $50Gas & Elec - $50Gas cooker with elec stove

Q - Telephone - home phone vs cellular. Rental and call prices
A - Home line=$19 pm depending on package
cell= from $30 depending on package. $79 for equiv of talk 500. calls are between 27 and 40c, with 30c connection fee

Q - Malls - ZA or US equivalent?
A - very few - mostly UK type shopping strips

Q - Social life - do they invite/include foreigners?
A - very open to cultures. no issues

Q - Electric appliances - looks like all our South African stuff will work there?
A - Yes, except if your TV is older than around 10 years

Q - Garden Equipment - are you allowed to ship your lawnmower and spades, gazebo (I happen to like my metal sculpture) etc?
A - Yes, just make sure NO seeds/grass etc comes with - they will find it and destroy it. Steam clean it.

Q - Container / move - what size did you take, and how much did it cost?
A - 30m3/R40000.

Q - Hiring a car when you get there - cost per week / international license ok?
A - Varies - best site is http://www.vroomvroomvroom.com.au/. SA licence is OK.

I'll keep updating this as I get questions.

WTF?

2007-12-29T22:01:00.000+11:00

So we decided in March 2007 to permanently move to Australia from South Africa. It's December 2007 and we're here now, so I decided to share some info around our experiences.

WTF is for 'Where to Find...?', 'What the F...', Why the F...', etc... ;-)

I'll let you know What To Find, What they tell you, and especially, what they don't tell you!

I know there's loads of info out there about Aus, but I thought I'd compile it into one place about the stuff that worked for me. I hope it's useful to someone...

Disclaimer: This is based on my individual experiences. I'll mention companies by name and recommend what I found worked - or didn't. Do your own research and use common sense when considering my view...

WTF - about the pets...

2007-06-15T16:05:00.001+10:00

What you want:
To bring your beloved animals with!

What you think:
No problem - a few months in quarrantine is ok.

What they DON'T tell you:
Bad news, I'm afraid. We had 2 lovely chow-chow's - part of the family - that we had to leave behind. It was the hardest decision of all. The quarrantine period here is 7 MONTHS. That's insane! We couldn't bring ourselves to lock our dogs up in solitary confinement for that long, and then when they came out, they'd be weird and screwed up. So we gave them away to a lovely family in SA. Still breaks our hearts every day, but you're choosing a better, safer lifestyle for the rest of your life, so in the end it was them or us. Sounds selfish, but it was worth it.If you decide on solitary ;-) for them, they are well cared for by professionals, and you can visit as often as you like, but the centers are normally out of town. If you can deal with the heartache of deserting them every week (we can't), maybe it's an option. It's around R20000 to fly them out and around $3000 per month for them (times 7!), so you need to weigh up how much you need to get out of there... also, consider your housing when you arrive. Most rentals don't like pets.

WTF - who to trust with everything you own on the planet!

2007-06-12T14:12:00.000+10:00

What you want:
All your earthly possessions to arrive safe and sound halfway across the world - undamaged...

What you think:
It's very expensive, everything is going to break, and it probably won't arrive in Australia.

What they DON'T tell you:
We relocated with Crown International Relocations instead of Biddulphs for the simple reason that Crown offered an end-to-end Crown owned service, whereas Biddulphs used other service providers.

Crown was excellent.

The packing staff were great and thorough, and when we received our goods that were shipped on 20 October on 27 December, NOTHING was damaged or broken. Incredible, considering our whole house had gone via truck to Durban, South Africa, into storage, onto a container ship to Singapore, into storage, onto another ship to Melbourne, into storage, through customs, transferred to a new container, and eventually unpacked at our new home. Even our 40 plus bottles of wine and 80 or so glasses made it. Well done to them!

The packing process took 2 days and they pack it all. Loading is on the third day and takes most of the day.

Make sure you remove all animal, plant, untreated wood and grasses from your stuff. Don't try to sneak anything through. Customs and immigration unpacks the container into a new one on arrival in Australia, and they'll find most things. We had a honeymoon photo album with a banana leaf stuck on the front cover and they destroyed this - we didn't sneak it in, just overlooked it in the chaos.

Another thing to get used to - it took 8 guys to load the truck in SA, plus a driver to watch, and 2 guys to unload, one of which was the driver - bit more efficient and cost effective, methinks...

WTF - to sell or not to sell?

2007-06-10T17:14:00.000+10:00

What you want:
Start getting rid of the big things like cars, houses, furniture, pets in time.

What you think:
Start early so you're not stuck with it.

What they DON'T tell you:
For my views on what to get rid of, see this post.

Don't sell anything until the VISA is in your hand! A million things can go wrong in a year - the typical processing time for a PR/Permanent Residence VISA - so patience is needed. We started by getting a quote for the furniture relocation, which then let us understand how much space we had to pack into. We then measured up everything and decided what to get rid of. We also got settlement prices for the cars, and a valuation on the house. We prepared all the adverts for the household stuff, took some digital pics, and prepared an email to circulate amongst our friends... and then waited.

and waited.

and then the panic moment arrived. The VISA came through.
We sent the FOR SALE email to our mates and most stuff went within a week - you'll be amazed how effective this is - interesting to find out who's being coveting your possessions with lustful hearts!!! ;-)

Cars went within about 3 weeks with the right price -don't expect market value if you're in a hurry, but be careful not to get shafted. If you don't sell in time you can always leave signed papers with a lawyer or trusted friend to handle the transaction. It's not a big deal.

Selling the house is tricky because it's very dependant on demand in your area, but once you have a buyer and he's paid a deposit and all is signed, very little normally goes wrong. All the paperwork after you've accepted the offer can be done remotely, so keep things in perspective.

Pets were hardest, simply because we wanted to hand-pick the new owners.

So, repeat after me - Don't sell anything until the VISA is in your hand!

WTF - to take your stuff or not?

2007-06-08T14:45:00.000+10:00

What you want:
To easily settle into your new life in Australia.

What you think:
Not sure whether to take your things with you or not. Some say yes, some say no...

What they DON'T tell you:
Our thought process started with listening to advice from 'others'. Bear in mind that each experience is unique, so you need to make up your own mind based on limited information. We were told that it's better to sell up everything and buy again when we arrived in Australia due to strict quarantine laws, different furniture styles, cheaper prices, etc. We were also told to hang on to everything for exactly the opposite reasons.

In the end, we compromised.

The obvious things that won't go through customs, like feathers, untreated wooden African souvenirs, anything made out of cane or grasses, or mud/clay, we gave away or sold. This included our lawnmower, weed eater and camping gear.

The other limitation was the container size. It's 30 cubic meters, which was 6 meters by 2 meters by 2 meters. Into this must go your whole life's gathering! Quite a challenge.
This had an upside - we finally tossed away all the crap that we clung onto for the last 20 years and moved from storage cupboard to cupboard and house to house and never used/looked at/ even knew existed until we tried to throw it away and couldn't.
I found this a very cleansing process - decluttering your life is amazing and refreshing. Even if you're not moving, I highly recommend it!
This included clothes, shoes, duplicate appliances, old sentimental furniture, papers and other rubbish.

We also decided not to take any vehicles with as the import duties are very high, and cars are about 30% cheaper to buy in Australia - I'll post about this later.

I also left my Jetski for the same reason.

...and yes, we did take our electrical appliances and TVs and hi-fi's etc - the power supply is the same as South Africa, so all it involved was a trip to Bunnings (similar to Makro in South Africa) to buy 25 new plugs and a morning to change them and everything worked just fine.
The only catch is that your TV has to be able to use the PAL B/G format. South Africa uses PAL I, so check this before taking the TV with. Most modern TVs can switch between the formats though.

We ended up taking only our best quality, most useful and most loved stuff and it was a very good decision!

I cannot tell you what a wonderful feeling it was when everything arrived thousands of kilometers away in our new country! It immediately makes your house feel like home, and settles you. And it's not a materialistic view - many things you own have good memories attached to them. We're very glad we decided to ship our stuff.

Another upside - settling into Australia is a lot of work initially - you don't know your way around, or where to find or buy anything. You also don't recognise brands or know what good or poor quality suppliers are, so I imagine having to buy your whole life back quickly would lead to some costly and regrettable decisions.

The next post will discuss relocation companies and our experience with them...

WTF - everybody hates Paperwork

2007-06-05T16:03:00.000+10:00

What you want:
You need to wrap up your local country affairs and get started on what you need in the new country.

What you think:
It's not much, I'll tackle it later...

What they DON'T tell you:
Start NOW! We worked from May 07 to October 07 for about 2 hours each evening/day to finalise all the 'small' things, like the Visa requirements - see 'WTF - which Visa?' and more...

This included the English Language Test,
the recognition of prior learning,
original copies of your qualifications from the University, Tech, etc,
recent work experience,
letters of reference for the last few jobs,
health checks (a rip-off),
character references,
unabridged birth certificate and marriage certificate (good luck if you're doing this in South Africa), police clearance certificates which required fingerprints (take these to Pretoria yourself, don't rely on the post to get them there - when you collect the certificate you'll understand why),
certified copies of every document you have such as all the above-mentioned (hours long wait at the police station),
wrap up insurance policies,
health policies,
health insurance,
sell your cars,
reduce your cellphone account to the lowest balance so you can buy yourself out (there's no way out of these contracts),
cancel your satellite tracking on your cars (also no way out of the contract, so sell the car with the tracking),
cancel your telephone and internet accounts,
cancel your TV Licence,
decide on how much furniture you're taking with you,
sell the rest while trying not to get conned through the JunkMail,
finalise your tax,
get a tax clearance certificate for money you want to take out the country,
sell the house,
sell any toys - Jetski, boat, etc,
fix up any little things in the house you're selling,
get rid of your pets to a decent home,
say goodbye to everyone,
attend 100 farewell parties,
get to know who your real friends are,
arrange temporary accommodation for the time before you leave,
throw/give away clothes,
extra appliances, etc,
book furniture removal,
micromanage furniture removal,
book flights,
try to pack 2 months worth of stuff (that's how long the furniture and household takes to arrive ) into 40 kg's,
get on the plane,
and .....whew!

Arrive!

and then this all starts all over again, but in reverse... but that's for another post.

I'll go into some detail about the above and the little things I learned along the way
in future posts - stay tuned!

WTF are the Australian Visa options?

2007-06-03T16:53:00.000+10:00

What you want:
Get a VISA

What you think:
It's almost impossible to get into Australia...

What they DON'T tell you:
Firstly, the VISA process is simple if you can read.

Depending on your situation, the common Visa's are:
Migrants Visa - go to http://www.immi.gov.au/migrants/index.htm
Workers Visa - go to http://www.immi.gov.au/skilled/index.htm
Students Visa - go to http://www.immi.gov.au/students/index.htm

Take the time to read through the site. There's tons of useful stuff and they've done a great job. When you do apply, complete everything 100% as they ask. They are very specific about the requirements, so don't take chances.

Australian Immigration now have an online application facility here. It seems to be speeding things up a bit. There's also the paper route here.

The next big question is whether to use an immigration agent or not. We decided not to because of the work situation, but I would not have used one either way.
They seem to be reputable and have to be registered, but they charge HUGE (R30,000 to R120,000) amounts of money by the time you're done to simply complete the online application form , read the website and double check your forms for your lazy self. Some claim to fast-track the process and according to the Immigration web site, this is not possible. You decide who to believe.

Once again - THIS IS NOT COMPLICATED, JUST VERY PRECISE. Do it yourself.

Good luck and see you here soon...

WTF'kin start?

2007-06-01T23:02:00.000+10:00

What you want:
Work & money

What they tell you:
get your PR (Permanent Residency), then relocate/migrate, then find a job - no worries...

What they don't tell you:
Get a job first! We looked at permanent residency, but the process takes ages - about 12 to 24 months - really. My brother started in March '07 and he's lucky if he's in by April '08. We were lucky enough to find employment first, which included a transfer (everything paid), and it was still very hard - emotionally, physically, and paperwork! It still took 6 months before we landed in Australia.

WTF:
Australia Immigration Site - use it! There's step-by-step instructions and if you make the effort you can DIY

WTF - go looksee for yourself

2007-05-01T11:48:00.000+10:00

What you want:
Move to Australia ASAP!

What you think:
You've been told 'it's very similar to South Africa - same weather, also love rugby, sunshine and braai/barbeque'

What they DON'T tell you:
Go and see for yourself. It's beyond me how anyone can rip up their whole lives, hop on a plane and go and live somewhere on the opposite side of the planet without taking the trouble to have a look firsthand?

Yes, it's expensive. Yes, it takes planning and time. Yes, everyone at work and all your friends and family get a heads-up on your intentions. Just do it!

We decided to visit Perth (everyone in South Africa tends to end up there), Sydney (everyone wants to be there), and Melbourne (heard good things from some Aussie friends). We skipped Brisbane, Canberra and Adelaide.

We took nearly three weeks so we could spend a decent amount of time experiencing local life and try to lose the tourist feeling to feel the 'real life' in the various places. Not much time in retrospect, but enough to see the differences in the various places.

So here's what we thought:

Perth - too far from everything, particularly given that my wife and I are in IT. If you're in the mining or resources industry it's probably good to consider, as it's booming at the moment. Also a solid 6 hour flight to Sydney and Melbourne where a lot of Australia's business happens.
Sydney - nice if you're a tourist, but our (very limited) experience was that it's just another busy city. It seems very congested, loads of tourists, traffic is hell, very expensive to live and work there. Very beautiful.
Melbourne - this stole our hearts. It's a spacious, well-planned, vibey and interesting place and has a bit more laid-back feeling. It sits on a 50km by 50km bay which is perfect for any watersports, has winelands all around it, snow skiing in winter only a 3 hour drive away and there's lots of sports, concerts, shows, restaurants, etc in very close proximity. Public transport is also excellent. The trams, trains and buses are clean and well maintained and generally on time. Also very well organised as is everything else here, so they have extra transport during major events as an example.The weather seems ok - it's known as four seasons in a day, but so far it's been great. Gets VERY hot sometimes with desert winds blowing the temps up to 40 degrees for a few days, then a 'cool change' comes in and the temp drops by 10 to 20 degrees in 30 minutes. Everyone always has a spare coat with them!
Brisbane, Adelaide and Canberra - we skipped these because Sydney and Melbourne are the biggest cities - around 3.5 million people in each, and these 3 cities where either too remote or too small to hedge our bets in the job market.

One thing you need to experience too believe is the sheer size of Australia! It's massive.
Take a look at the map and see how close Sydney and Melbourne appear. That's 900km's you're looking at! roughly from Joburg to East London. Also remember that you have to drive at 100km/h - not 101 or 102, but 100 - and that's a loooooong trip by car...

So our impressions were that the weather is good, lifestyle is very different, very British history, mannerisms and ways about the Aussies, very clean, neat, well-organised country, very proud nation, very welcoming, very accepting of different cultures (only 30% of Melbournians are Aussies), VERY EXPENSIVE housing and a low, low crime rate.
The country is also booming so there's lots of work around and we felt we could build a future here filled with hope, security and a great lifestyle...