Australia to live?

[pingu2]

DH has just lob his job as company been bought out, not too scarey as he will get a years salary anyway. First job he has been head hunted for is in Australia though! He is really keen on the idea and is going for interview. Obviously he may well not get it anyway but I would be keen on any advice anyway, in case we need to make decision. I have never even been there, he has, on business and loved it. I think he is having a bit of a mid life crisis and wants a real change. He seems keen on selling up, me selling my business and having "An Adventure". Thing is we have 3 kids under 10 so have to think about schools etc. Personally would be up for a challenge but to me kids come first. Anyone know anything about schools etc in Australia?

Actually Croppy's right - London's ave rainfall is 24" and Sydney's is 48"! BUT I found a site claiming Sydney has an average of 340 sunny days a year! Not sure about that, since other things I found showed average 10 days a month of rain (but it only needed to be more than .2mm of rain to qualify, which is barely a drizzle!)

FYI, Sydney's summer averages are about 65-85F, and winter averages are 50-65F. Most of the rain falls in March-June; July is the coldest month and Jan & Feb are the hottest. Oh and there are 37 beaches along the NSW coast, most within 30 mins of the city!

Forgot to add, don't worry too much about the sporting aspect, I hated sport at school...and still don't do any "proper" form of exercise. So we're not all sportsmad. Dh is a keen armchair sportsman - used to play indoor cricket but doesn't anymore - but loves to watch footy (Aussie rules) and cricket. I thought all blokes were mad-keen on the cricket and soccer anyway?

Sounds like a fantastic opportunity and there seems no end of positive things to say about Australia.

I did read an article in the New Statesman a few weeks back that detailed some of Australia's less attractive features - mostly political in nature. Have just tried to find it on the New Statesman website but apparently you need to pay: pah! I can't remember it in too much detail, except that the author talked about the lack of different voices in the press (I think Rupert Murdoch tends to own most of the major papers?) and problems connected with racism, particularly re. the Aboriginal people, and a preference - politically and militarily - to align with America and Europe instead of the rest of Australasia.

Does this make any sense, or is it another embittered left-wing columnist ranting?! I don't know how much a country's governance would affect my decision to live there; I mean, I wouldn't have gone to apartheid South Africa, but then if I lived elsewhere I don't think I'd be too keen on the UK right now...

I have to say, when it rains in Sydney - it REALLY rains (none of this drizzle rubbish). In some suburbs we heard rumours of surfers going down the street in some of the downpours. And the lightning storms can be dramatic (I remember sitting on a friend's balcony in Kirribilli drinking cocktails and watching the fantastic light show slowly coming at us over the harbour bridge).

As for the sport, I'm not a sports fan in the UK, but really got into Aussie Rules football (watching it, natch). Go Swannies!

As for racism, yes it does exist, particularly in the smaller towns and northern territories (against the Aboriginals), and in the bigger towns there's a certain amount of resentment against the large Asian influx (predominantly wealthy people). The Aboriginal population have huge problems which they're fighting against every day, but the situation has improved greatly. I certainly wouldn't compare it to South Africa under apartheid as the problems are not with a racist system, but with racist people.

Certainly Sydney is very tolerant of minorities of all types - there is a huge and very vocal gay community and this is not only tolerated but celebrated in a way I can't imagine being the case in London.

Not quite as bad as you mention but when it rained in Melbourne, it rained for a week solid. Our swimming pool filled up and started to overflow and I had to frantically call DH at work to find out how to drain some water out!

I am from the UK but both my sisters live in NSW just 10k from Sydney. One sister has just been visiting the UK and was appalled by the recent British Summer weather!!! We have been over twice and on both occasions have been shocked by the amount of racism towards the aboriginal communities (especially from the older generation). We also found that the suburbs were fairly sexist in their opinion towards women (think Britain in the 1970's).

I have to say my sisters day-to-day life is fairly similar to mine. My nieces and nephews schools don't seem to be any different from my children?s. Though theirs are private and our childrens are state run. Also they don't have a national healthcare system which is something I worry about, instead they have a similar system to America where they have to take out insurances.

The only real differences from their lives and ours are that they live in a better climate (though have fewer foreign holidays where their children experience different cultures) and they live in bigger houses for similar price (we live in the southeast of England).

I wish you well in your decision it is something I ponder over regularly, but deep down feel if I lived in another country I would want to live somewhere where I could experience a different culture and not that of Britain when I was growing up in the 1970's.

We lived in Australia for 16 years - came back in 2002, for mainly family reasons. We were in south east suburbs of Sydney (Sutherlandshire). If you move to Sydney, try to find somewhere to live which is not too far to the west of the city, otherwise you lose all the good things - beaches, things to do in the city etc. Some of the western suburbs are just acres and acres of new houses on raw blocks. The politics/health service/education/immigration debates are much the same as they are in the UK, and believe me, you can get just as fed up of day after day of hot sun as you can of cold rain!

There are more educational choices - many more Aussie kids go to private schools and as people have previously said, the opportunities for sports are endless. Living in Sydney, you also have the best of the cultural side of Australia too. When I went out there in 1987, there were many complaints that Australia was a cultural backwater but this is absolutley not the case now.

Aboriginal culture is celebrated, but this celebration does not extend to inclusion of aboriginal people. The aboriginal residents of Sydney live in a few small enclaves, not in the best part of the city (to say the least) and there are certain areas which are associated with certain immigrant groups, i.e. Cabramatta is predominantly Vietnamese, Lakemba is Lebanese.

The one thing I miss more than anything else about Sydney is the restaurant scene - excellent, varied, and cheap - we used to eat out 3 days a week.

They do have a national health service, medicare, which is funded by contributions of I think 1 or 1.5% 'tax', which covers the same sort of things as the NHS, and when you think about it, is cheaper than National Insurance. Friends of ours were split 50/50 between those who had private medical insurance to 'top up' and those who didn't bother. Many employers provide health insurance.

Traffic in Sydney can be a nightmare, but there is reasonably good train access from most parts of the metro area into the city. We were lucky and lived right on the edge of the metropolitan area, so could 'go bush' at the weekends. If you like the outdoor life, there is nowhere better - we used to barbecue 12 months of the year, and had many wonderful camping holidays - the campsites, especially those in national parks and reserves, are brilliant. As has been pointed out, when we live in Australia we didn't do the overseas travelling that we do now as it just takes so long to get anywhere, and the 3-4 of the holiday I always suffer from jet lag.

Is it true now that recently the rules had changed and in order to be permitted to live in australia you had to agree to live in a area not so densely populated for a few years? To encourage people to live in more rural areas/towns- as opposed to going to the major cities?

I'm British and I was also considering a move to Australia. We had been there twice on extended holidays and loved it.

So we have come here for 12 months to try it out.

Been in Sydney for six months, going home in January.

CAT me if you want to discuss it in depth. It's a very big decision, especially if you've never been here before, lots to think about and I can point you in the right direction.

Adventure? Some bloody adventure!!!!!!!