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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To emigrate to Australia?!

257 replies

DarlingDuck · 16/07/2011 14:56

DH and I are 30 and have 3 DC's, we've wanted to emigrate for a long time. It would mean me re-training and doing a midwifery degree but I would earn twice the salary in Australia as I would here in the UK. The only cons we can think of would be missing our families and all the huge spiders/snakes!

I realise it will be a huge upheaval and our eldest will be around 10 years old when we plan to go which may be hard for her. Ideally we would like to do it sooner but we want to make sure we can earn a good wage.... AIBU?

OP posts:
echt · 17/07/2011 17:10

Thumbs public schools (in Victoria) are free in one sense, but all books and equipment have to be paid for. Text books are very expensive, and change nearly every year so as to generate more money for the publishers, by making minor amendments which alter the page order, rendering the old stuff useless. I'd be surprised if NSW was any different.

Uniform very expensive indeed.

Schools chase you for "fees" which are several hundred a year, and supposedly "voluntary".

Maypole don't know where you get the idea that Australian schools are not very good. There is for a start, no such thing as an Australian school, as they set their own curriculum, but no-one says, Oooh don't go to Tasmania, the schools are crap.

I have taught for 25+ years in the UK, and for 5 here in Oz, and I can tell you the teaching in public schools is every bit as good as in the UK.

echt · 17/07/2011 17:11

Sorry should say that each state and territory sets its own curriculum.

ThumbsNoseAtSnapewitch · 17/07/2011 17:28

Thanks echt! I saw the bit about "voluntary contributions" but it said that was for upgrading equipment and stuff.

I might get away with not too much of that - our local public primary is one of the top 5 in NSW and gets loads of extra funding - but of course uniform and books etc. will have to be bought. What a scam though (with the books)!

echt · 17/07/2011 17:40

Yes, the books are a pain. Teaching "The Outsiders" with three different editions, all with different pages, is a nightmare.

On the fees front, the fees for DD's state school this year are $570.Shock

MrsKravitz · 17/07/2011 17:41

Really annoyed with the exchange rate at the moment

Chen23 · 17/07/2011 17:49

Always enjoyed Oz from a distance, lived there for a while but it wasn't for me. "The tyranny of distance" is a very real issue (or at least it was for me)

It really is pretty remote, apart from NZ everywhere is a long haul flight away; getting friends and family to visit isn't that easy and going back 'home' is a real mission; two long haul flights each way isn't much fun, especially with kids.

By and large Ozzies are great people, friendly and welcoming but (in my experience) pretty insular. Outside of the big cities there's a fair bit of mild racism / ignorance and (to a lesser extent) some outright hostility to anyone who isn't a WASP.

House prices are insane in many parts of OZ, the disconnect between prices and earnings in some places really does beggar belief. Cost of living has shot up since I lived there 10 years ago; shocked at how much food, both in supermarkets and when eating out has gone up.

Food is amazing, weather generally outstanding (if a little oppressively hot for me), outdoor living opportunities unmatched and quality of life in many ways is top notch.

I love visiting there but it's just a little too inward looking and cut off for me.

ThumbsNoseAtSnapewitch · 17/07/2011 18:19

Chen - totally agree with you re. the racism/ignorance away from the cosmopolitan atmosphere of the big city. There's a lot of it around our way. :(

savoycabbage · 18/07/2011 02:12

I have tried so hard to be happy here. So hard. But I'm not.

I want to go home but my dh doesn't. He is happy here and doesn't see why I am not. He is not English so there is nothing he misses. I don't want to break up my family. So I just keep going.

I haven't worked for five years. I am struggling to fill in the 18 page Victorian Institute of Teaching form. We spent $12000 going home at Christmas and every bit of dh's holiday days. I just spent two weeks of the school holidays without talking to another grown up. It's 11 degrees in the house in the mornings and takes about half an hour to reach 18 degrees. My children have to sleep in the fleece suits we got them for the plane. My seven year old is obsessed by the colour of her skin. The only time I can talk to anyone in England is the busiest part of our day, bedtime.

Morloth · 18/07/2011 02:40

Even this 'cold' Sydney winter isn't getting anywhere near the last 5 I have had in London.

It hasn't dropped below freezing even overnight once and I am currently on the deck in the sunshine with no shoes on and no coat and DS1 reckons he could handle the pool if I let him Wink. Obviously out of the question mid-winter in the UK.

I haven't noticed anymore racism here in Sydney than I experienced in London, no culture has a monopoly on that.

lulalullabye · 18/07/2011 07:05

I agree morloth. I think so far this winter in SA has been fantastic. The last winter in the Uk was horrific and I think I would be happy if I never saw another snowflake for ten years. The fact that it is 14 degrees here in winter is brilliant and when the sun shines it is bright and warm.
I think one of the problems that arises from being an expat in a country you are not happy with is that you then view the UK with rose tinted glasses. I know that the UK countryside is amazing but what about the city streets, full of litter and graffiti and dog shit!! The crap schools that it is expected you send your child to after you haven't got your first two reasonable choice schools!!!

Thumb. I am presuming you are not on a 457 visa?? If you are in NSW, you are going to ha to pay on average $10,000 for public school fees on that visa, so check that out too.

lulalullabye · 18/07/2011 07:07

Oh and p.s, that light quality and amount of sky here iykwim far makes up for the odd dreary day. All of a winter in Melbourne and half in SA I have only ever had to have the lights on during the day on a couple of occasions!

Tortoiseonthehalfshell · 18/07/2011 07:25

Ha, lula, you can tell you don't live in the Hills. It's been around zero overnight here on and off for weeks. Firewood is one of our bigger line items in the budget this year.

Mind you, I'm in town today and it's lovely looking out there.

ThumbsNoseAtSnapewitch · 18/07/2011 07:28

But Morloth - you are IN Sydney. I am not. It is more endemic in the more rural areas, not the cosmopolitan areas of the big cities, as both Chen and I have said.

I am on a 309 visa, upgrading to a 100 this year (whenever the DOI gets its arse in gear). DS is, however, an Aussie citizen.

The difference between the cold here and the cold in the UK is that it's warm when you go inside in the UK - here, it's not. Our house is colder than outside because of no central heating. It's warmer outside because of the small amount of sun, but that's not enough to warm the house. I would have loved to have been in LOndong for the last two snowy winters because it would have been cold and white outdoors then inside to warmth (and the log fire) and it was great. (We did it 3y ago, when we were still there).

However - I mention it because it is something that people who wish to emigrate out here have to consider and generally people from the UK have the idea that it's always hot and sunny out here - which it isn't. No point agreeing about the good weather - they need to know about the times it isn't so good for a balanced view.

Tortoiseonthehalfshell · 18/07/2011 07:31

Also:

I have a distant relative in Adelaide and when I tell most Aussies that they say "God I'm sorry". Apparently Adelaide is dull and boring. Having said that I saw an Aussie property programme a few days ago by coincidence, houses there are dirt cheap. A huge house with pool and large grounds was about £250,000. What would that buy here? A bedsit?!

Er. Where on earth was this house? Because that's utter bollocks unless it was in fact nowhere near Adelaide. Unless they were using the old exchange rate and meant $AU700,000, and it was a really long way out of the city.

Having said that I just didn't like the look of the town. It's called the 20 minute city as from any suburb you are only ever 20 minutes from the city centre. That tells you how small it is. Also not true, or close to it.

sunshinestate · 18/07/2011 08:00

Just wanted to add i live in Brisbane and have not noticed any more racism than i came across in London.

ThumbsNoseAtSnapewitch · 18/07/2011 08:06

And Brisbane is a big city.

ThumbsNoseAtSnapewitch · 18/07/2011 08:08

DH works with an Indian man who lives in Melbourne (another big city), where he and his family arevery happy. However, when they had the opportunity to move to the outskirts of Newcastle (big mining area), they went to have a look around and decided not to. DH's colleague was worried that they would fit in far less in the area and be subjected to the casual sort of racism that was endemic in the UK in the 1970s. And he was probably right.

MumblingRagDoll · 18/07/2011 08:29

Am coming on to defend Adelaide....it's a stunning city. Beautiful in every way. I didn't want to live there as the heat was too much for me but it's a very special pace and that's that.

MrsKravitz · 18/07/2011 08:59

There is a heck of a lot of racism where I live in rural england. Its shocking tbh.

differentnameforthis · 18/07/2011 23:58

Thumbs, we pay school fees here in SA. All pupils do.

ThumbsNoseAtSnapewitch · 19/07/2011 00:35

Diff, are those the "voluntary" contributions that echt was talking about, or something else? I must chat to the mums at playgroup about this when I go in about half an hour, so I can see what the position is here in NSW. As I said, it's no real drama so long as I know about it - just need to be prepared!

You'd think the NSW education website would be a little more upfront about it, wouldn't you?

cherrysodalover · 19/07/2011 01:42

I like Australia but when I visited 15 years ago I did find the lack of culture kind of shocking- ozzies are pretty nice people generally but they can be a bit....stick it on the BBQ about stuff that you may take for granted people are interested in back home....I found it hard to have any conversations that were beyond- "yeah fairdinkum mate" kind of thing....huge generalisation I know and it was a while back but there are bigger cultural differences than you imagine-and the house prices...... A relative bought a place recently and from the photos it looks pretty uninspiring for not far off 300K.

Go and holiday and see if it is for you.

TillyIpswitch · 19/07/2011 02:05

"Outside of the big cities there's a fair bit of mild racism / ignorance"

Whereas you never get any of that outside big cities in the UK... Grin

TillyIpswitch · 19/07/2011 02:08

My God, I'm not even Australian, but I'm finding some of these comments quite unbelievable...! And show the posters who are making them up for being more ignorant than the people they're discussing....

Yes, Australians are incapable of being aware of and discussing current / world affairs, and instead sit around grinning inanely at each other and sniggering in the manner of Beavis and Butthead... Hmm

cjdamoo · 19/07/2011 02:21

School contributions for me (nsw) Primary about $70 per child Secondary a big jump to $250.