PIL want to move to Australia

[PILinOz]

I posted this on the living overseas board but I don't think it's particularly active so reposting here for traffic.

My parents in law have just come back from visiting their daughter, her husband and kids in Melbourne. They have told us that due to the health benefits of living in a warmer climate they want to move over there permanently and are seriously looking into making it happen.
We are very close to them and my kids absolutely adore them. Whenever they leave to visit, usually for a few months at a time, my kids are incredibly upset and miss them terribly. If PIL move away permanently they will be absolutely devastated.

They are in their late 60s and financially comfortable. They suffer from some health conditions. How realistic is it that they would be granted permanent residency?

Sorry rephrase: barely anyone I know watches TV. Better?

You also took one part of my sentence and put it out of context so you could comment. Hope that’s made you feel better about your day :)

Touchy much?? No need to make such sweeping generalisations. I lived in the UK for nearly 2 decades before returning to Australia and honestly while there is more opportunity to be outdoorsy in Australia, people still watch way too much tv (myself included, lol). Except for my DC1 who probably spends more time gaming than watching tv in fairness.... and he's cricket mad but played it just as much in the UK as he does here.

And given the miserable wet winters in Melbourne where the OPs PIL are planning to move to tv is probably even more appealing there.

That’s not what touché means, but ok. Have a good day

Apologies - misread as touché

And no, not touchy either. I just said in comparison to the uk people here watch less tv. It’s true. I didn’t say nobody watches tv, just that our lives here don’t seem as centralised around the tv like they did in the uk.

I assumed that "people don't watch TV," just means "people mostly watch streamed stuff nowadays rather than regular TV."

In Aus average person watches 55hrs of TV a month. In UK average person watches 28 hours of TV per week. That’s what I was getting at. But that’s neither helpful nor relevant to the post, I literally was just responding to a post that said “TV is rubbish in Aus”.

I’m out, but OP, if you do return to the tread, I’m an immi lawyer and I can let you know if it’s even feasible for your in laws to make the move, as you may potentially be worrying about nothing.

They've just had a lovely holiday out there. When I'm on holiday, I don't want to come back either. You'd hope they'd thoroughly researched every aspect of it before telling you the big news, but it is possible the desire will wane as they settle back into their uk lives and the plan starts to feel real.

If it's what they really want then you have to support it I guess, but I'd be hurt too. It feels like they have chosen their preferred dc and gc.

Pretty much. I was just literally saying that if someone wasn’t going to move here because one mumsnetter said “tv is rubbish” they would be foolish, but not even a full sentence of my post got taken out of context. Anyhow don’t think OP is returning 😜

Not relevant today with streaming services etc. but twenty odd years ago it wasn't so much the quality of TV but the sheer number of ad breaks. Pretty irrelevant to the discussion anyway, surely nobody decides to move/not move to a country based on the quality of TV programming?

@Aussiegirl123456 - clearly I misinterpreted what you said, for me tv is all the same, streaming services or free to air, so apologies if you meant just the free to air! I thought it was the weirdest thing to say which is why I responded.

Wow! Thank you for all the helpful advice and thoughtful responses, all very much appreciated.

To answer a few questions raised:

PIL have 2 dc. My SIL in Australia and my DH here in the Uk so yes, 50% of their DC are in Aus.

SIL lives about an hour North of Melbourne.

Moving out there isn't an option for us, even the expense of flights for us would be prohibitively expensive so I don't even think we'd be able to visit. If we did it'd be a long way off as we'd have to save hard.

As for my own family, both my parents are dead so no GP on my side. My only sibling lives abroad also. I have no extended family. The only family we have here is on my DH's side.

Having looked at the health requirements, I'm not sure they'd pass as MIL has MS. Fortunately it doesn't affect her too badly and it hasn't progressed much.

I do think it's a case of having had a wonderful time away and the good weather over the Australian summer making them feel so much better. I dont blame them at all for wanting to go and if they do decide to go of course we'd support them and wish them well. I'll just really miss them.

Also, the thunderstorm asthma is concerning as FIL has a respiratory condition!

Can see how it would leave a huge gap in your lives. Suspect the M S may make it not possible.

North, you say?

"I was at the Alfred Hospital in November 2010 in a work group and all of a sudden all of the doctors left, and I think 90 people had presented at their emergency department as a result of thunderstorm asthma."

Following that incident in 2010, Associate Professor Cenk Suphioglu from Deakin University told ABC's Catalyst program that Melbourne was a particular hotspot for thunderstorm asthma.

"Because when these pollens are being released, [they] are picked up by northerly winds and all of the growth is in the northern parts of Victoria," he said.
"The northerly winds pick them up and bring them into the metropolitan area where most of us are, and then you have the perfect model system for thunderstorm-induced asthma."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-22/what-is-thunderstorm-asthma/8044920

Another major thunderstorm asthma event, which killed 10 people:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-25/thunderstorm-asthma-inquest-victims-cardiac-arrest/9907120

When those 10 people died in Melbourne a few years ago nobody had heard of thunderstorm asthma. Since then there's been 1 or 2 days where we've been warned about it, but there has been no repeat of that horrible day.

My understanding is that it's not normal asthma. It's more like hayfever in your lungs (and therefore people who suffer from that are more susceptible than regular asthmatics). Now that a warning system is in place, people can take steps to prevent it.

I'm a bit perplexed it's coming up as a reason not to move somewhere, it's really not something that is on peoples' radar in Melbourne. If your FIL has respiratory conditions I would think that overall, the Melbourne climate would be more favourable.

I'll confess, I'd never heard of thunderstorm asthma before but it sounds bloody scary! Those poor people. I'm glad that more is known about it now and that warning systems are in place.

This
if not a thing that’s really even thought off . And our media hypes up everything.