To want to move to Australia ? Need advice

[maxbradbury]

Cannot find suitable forum so posting here because of high traffic.

DH is a qualified gas engineer and we are considering a move to Australia. I dont know anybody who has done this and would like to know if anybody has done this or knows someone who has so i can get a insite of life there such as cost of living, lifestyle, education and how easy it is to get a job. Any helpful comment appreciated.

There is racism, of course, but I just don't think it is as common as a lot of people seem to think it is - in my opinion, in south east Queensland, anyway.
There is definitely a less pc attitude which can be a bit shocking to more pc types - like myself. People use insults affectionately, make jokes with no malice, etc. this deep rooted racism and exclusion of other cultures is something I have very, very rarely come across.

Look, op, I wouldnt let accusations of racism put you off. And as for the blemishes on Australian history, they are as much England's responsibility as australia's. There are also plenty of things to be proud of in Australian history. The more important considerations for you are lifestyle and expenses. I would suggest looking at seek.com.au, to find job ads and see what you could earn and domain.com.au to look for housing costs. It is very difficult to live on one salary in most cities. Childcare is subsidised, but you would need to check that you would be eligible. If you look at myschool.edu.au it will show you how each school compares on standardized tests (not that revealing, but a starting point).

Some might say using insults affectionately,making jokes is deep rooted racism though if very few are bothered by it.

I think very few people would think it ok if somebody said at a party-"you'll see loads of Pakis up in Birmingham".We constantly had people saying "you'll see loads of Abbos up in Cairns,don't use the public bbqs they never clean them" that kind of thing.

It was the way sooooo many people spoke,even people you wouldn't have expected to and that is racism not affection.

"blemishes on Australian history" kind of think it's a bit more than that.

Also I wasn't there neither were my grandparents.The only people who have responsibility for Australia are Australians.

Yes the big issue is can you afford it.

I mean in general, when considering Aus. What will the standard of living be like.

And it's not just history it's happening now.

We pay under $300 per week for a 3 bed house, huge back garden, air con etc. But that is one of the cheapest rates around here (Adelaide). Because the house is old. But the landlords do maintain it well. All states are different for costs etc, my sil was paying almost double what we pay for a studio apartment in Sydney!

There is no free healthcare at point of sale unless you have health care card. We pay $55 per visit to see the dr, but we do get about 80% of that back. Public hospital is free. Prescription costs will make your eyes water. No cap, not free for minors. Again, free if on health care card. I paid $20 for antibiotics for dd when she was a baby! Contraceptives also not free.

There is no NHS dentistry. If you have a health care card (v low income) you do get to see a free dentist. Emergency = quite quick. Routine = 2yr wait for an exam.

I have to say that I have not experienced racism here. I was told that I should be careful in a certain part of the city as the Aboriginals drink there (they do) and ask for money for grog (they do) and can get aggressive if refused (they do). I don't think that is racist, merely stating the obvious. Of course, to keep the posts here in perspective, racism hasn't been irradiated in the UK either, and if someone were to use that as a reason not to emigrate there, you would be pretty at them, I suspect.

Considering a vast percentage of Australians are first or second generation, who is responsible then? I think that governments, for some time, have been doing their utmost to improve the conditions in indigenous communities. They are not having much success because some of the communities are so isolated and dysfunctional. Why? Because historically their lands were invaded by Britain. Since the 60s, efforts to acknowledge and improve conditions tend to have backfired. Eg, equal pay meant loss of work, encouraging aboriginals to maintain their culture encouraged them to live in isolated places with no economy. They were given welfare to help them live in these places but that just creates dysfunctional welfare reliance. It is a big problem, there is a lot of discussion about how to fix problems while remaining sensitive to indigenous culture. There is a lot of local involvement - prestigious private schools all have scholarship programs for indigenous students, public service, unis all have affirmative action programs. It is simplistic to say that Australians are purely responsible and to suggest that they have an interest in maintaining the status quo.

Deep rooted racism to me equals hatred. I have seen none of that.
Bowing out now as this debate is not really helping OP and is a bit insulting to Australians (racist??).

Hi maxbradbury when I lived in Oz very few properties had fires/gas heating, most were electric plug ins & some houses don't have gas connections (from what I remember, could be wrong) boilers are more likely to be gas but I would check out how easy it is for dh to find employment and how much it will pay before you consider anything else.

You are not in oz, prairie? I suspect you have no idea about current policy debates.

"insulting to Australians" by that I guess you mean white Australians.

Hmmmm I think Yolander Walker sums up the stereotyping and the racism Aboriginals have to live with in the article below under the racism section.That is what I came across and what I found unpleasant however uncomfortable for white Australians to read.

www.aifs.gov.au/institute/pubs/fml/fm35yw.html

I'm bowing out now,apparently op there is no racism.I'd visit and judge for yourself.It would be risky to move anywhere you hadn't previously lived in for a variety of reasons.

www.aifs.gov.au/institute/pubs/fm1/fm35yw.html

I didn't say insulting and I didn't say no racism. I said you are being simplistic and are probably fairly ignorant.

I said insulting, tryingtoleave, although I didn't say no racism either.
That article was written almost 20 years ago.

No one has actually said there isn't any racism Praire. Just that you can't call the whole of Australia and in its inhabitants racist.

time and time again when a thread about Austalia comes up racism is mentioned by the many who have been and lived there. it is such a shame as it is a wonderful country, the population is made up of many different culture but if this has such an impact on the many that do visit (not all) that really does say something about the country. everyone i know that has lived there or travelled there is shocked by it. my family who live there (melbourne) just accept it, my dad when visiting could nto wait to leave. i am not sure why it is so bad is it because the indigenous people are adn have been treated so badly in very recent history that casual racism is not seen as such a bad thing i do not know

and yes i am well aware that racisim is alive and doing well in the uk just we seem to have a more progressive attitude in dealing with it (now)

Maybe when people travel they interact with different types of people than at home? Or maybe we are blind to the racism we are used to but notice new forms? Certainly, I have heard comments by poms that I thought were unacceptably racist.

Yes the language described here is awful. But in which country is there greater equality of opportunity?

In dd's childcare they have been painting aboriginal flags this week. Ds has been taken to see aboriginal art on a school excursion. School history textbooks paint pre-colonization aboriginal society as some kind of rousseau-ian golden age (a myth, btw). Aboriginal culture is certainly not denigrated in main stream education)

Certainly, I have heard comments by poms that I thought were unacceptably racist.

This is such a typical example of why racism is not noticed by Australians, why is it ok to call English people poms? Why?? Is it also ok to use the words paki, abo, nigger? I don't think so, I can't see any problem with using the short and easy to say word "Brit" I was told when I lived in Australia that the word pom ment prisoner of her majisty, I was called pom repeatedly and most of the time didn't mind, my boss once made a comment "oh stop being such a pom" to which I said to her, actually my great grandparents were not prisoners your were so don't call me pom! Is it ok to comment on the origins of a person? No it's not! She didn't like me pointing it out to her, but I hope it made her double think what she said in the future.

I in no way think all Australians are racist, I think that many are racist through ignorance rather than mallice.

oh dear that told you :)

serioulsy i was very shocked at the treatment of the indigenious people. i worked in sydney for a year in many offices (so mixed with australians of all different backgrounds, travellers who were mainly english and irish) and never worked with anyone who was from an indigenous background and the attidude toward them by many (most people in my experience) was shocking i had so many arguments and was told to shut up us poms have no idea. going up north the conditions were terrible i do not think anyone can argue against that how did it get so bad. melbourne was slightly better (though i prefer sydney)

I'm moving soon. I've never visited and won't before I move.
I think it's harder if you have children but I'm excited. I always say regret what you did, not what you didn't do. You can always move back.
What do you do op?

What on earth is wrong with being called a pom? You don't have a problem with "Brit", another nickname. "Prisoner of Her Majesty" is only one of many possible derivations of the term. Tryingtoleave was using the term in a familiar sense, the way people in the north of England use "love" and "darling when they don't actually love you and are not trying to sleaze onto you (which is what it can sound like to people as unfamiliar with the vernacular as you clearly are with Australian forms of speech. Being called darling by old blokes who were strangers to me made me really quite uncomfortable when I first came to live in the UK until I understood the context because I was making an effort to understand, and I was willing to assume that they meant well.

The term for Aussies in the same sense is "Skippy", which is similarly not perjorative. You could have turned around and told you boss to stop being such a skippy and she would have laughed! Instead you chose to assume and make it clear that you assumed that she was being racist.

I have heard Abo in remote communities, but the only place I have heard "Paki" is the UK.