Australia - British Expat Forum

Hi

My OH, my 2 year old and I are hoping to move to Brisbane at the end of this year !!
I'm a joiner and cabinet maker and my wife is a careers adviser, is there work out here for us?
We've looked at Seek and CareerOne - but would REALLY appreciate advice as we're lost!
Also, we're on a limited budget and would like to find a suburb to live that's within easy commuting distance of CBD - phew!!! enough questions!!!
We look forward to any help, advice and info.

ps Happy New Year!!!

Hi racoon and welcome to BE.

You don't mention whether or not you've got your visa sorted out yet. If not, this is the place to start, and where you choose to live comes further down the line.

Have you checked to see if your trade is on the skills wanted list? If it is, you're off to a flying start. Also, if you're prepared to go to a regional area, instead of a capital city, your application will be dealt with very swiftly. At the moment Aus is very short of skilled tradesmen and professionals, so these applications are treated as top priority, above all the thousands of others. (by regional, I don't mean out in the bush, just country towns).

SSue 8)

Hi

Yes we have had the TRA assessment approved as of Dec 06.
And we have completed the PR Visa, we're about to submit - so fingers crossed to be in Bisbane by late 2007.
My job (carpenter and joiner) is on the MODL list, but we are unclear about where the job opportunities are in Brisbane, we have checked out the popular search sites (as per previous e-mail) but yield few results for my OH, who is a careers counsellor... Any ideas?

Thanks for your response - useful information!!!

Hi Racoon,

We are also just about to send off our PR application, having just received our positive TRA (Carpentry/Joinery) results in Dec 06. We are also hoping to head out to Brisbane to live with our 2 children. We have friends out there already and have received positive feedback about job posibilities in the area. We'll keep our fingers crossed for you on the PR application. Our agent has indicated that our application should be assessed in 8/10 months!

Keep us posted on your progress and good luck !!

Hi Shepie

Good to hear from you.
The PR visa was posted 2 weeks ago. We haven't heard anything yet, it'll take a while I guess. Our aim is to be in Oz by Christmas, Jan 08 at the latest.
Have you had any thoughts on area you're thinking of moving to? we're looking at Redcliffe, we've read that it's good for families, it's reasonably inexpensive to buy a property there and the commute to the CBD is ok (around 40 minutes). You say you have friends out in Brisbane, what's their opinion/advice on areas to live?
Hope to hear from you soon.
All the best

Raccoon.

Hi Racoon,

Our applications are now on their way !!!! Fingers crossed we'll also be in Sunny Oz for Christmas. Not had much chance to think about where we would like to live as yet. Our friends live in Kangeroo Point and they love it there. I think it's pretty central and very children friendly - they have three boys under 3 !! They have offered to let us stay with them for a while when we get there, so hopefully we can have a really good look around and arrange new jobs at the same time. I think we will probably rent for a few months or so, before buying anywhere, as I would really like to build our own home. Keep in touch and let us know how your application is going. Have you had your police checks and medicals done yet or are you waiting until you hear back from DIMA ?

Chat to you soon,
Shepie

Hi Shepie!

We're about to go for our medicals and fingers crossed that the PR visas will be through very soon after.
How are your plans going? Are you any further on with your visas?
We've recently posted another question on the site concerning the drought. Is it something you've thought about?
We're not deterred by it, but need more facts. We just don't want to live in a dust bowl!! - which is the current take by the UK press and media.
Enough whinging for now.
Hope all is well with you all.
Best wishes
Raccoon.

Hi Racoon,

Good to hear from you & glad to hear your pr application is moving along nicely. We have just had our meds done (11 April) and all being well these should now be in OZ! We got news from our Agent last week that we had been allocated a case handler and that our meds had been requested, so fingers crossed we should only have a few more weeks to wait !! To be honest we didn't expect to hear anything this soon. Have you sold your house yet ? We are thinking of putting ours up for sale in the next couple of weeks. All being well, we will be heading out to Brisbane at the end of October.

Not heard too much about the drought, however our friends out there don't seem to be too concerned about it.

Good luck with your meds.

Chat to you soon,
Shepie

Hi Shepie

We too were allocated a case officer a lot sooner than we anticipated - to be honest this took us really by surprise.
Subject Access reports were submitted a month ago and we're still waiting from Greater Manchester Police for feedback - I understand the process can take up to 40 days - longer taking the Easter holidays into account.
We too are about to put our house on the market (to avoid the cost of Home Inspection Reports if nothing else!!) and we have a viewer this Wednesday - so fingers crossed for a private sale.
Good luck with the next part of your journey and keep us informed.

Best wishes
Raccoons' of Wigan xx

Good luck with your viewing this week. Hopefully we will have a few arranged in the next few weeks too.

Will let you know as soon as we hear back from our agents. Good luck with the meds too. They are pretty straightforward really.

Best wishes
Shepie, (Stevie, Anita, Ryan & Jordan)

hi to the racoons of wigan
myself and my family are making the move in august and intend settling on the gold coast as we have a 16 yr old daughter and think will be easiier for her to settle in that area,we are moving from scotland,my husband is scottish but im actually english and from chorley,lancs,only down the road from yourslf
would be good to keep in contact with you and maybe even meet up when you arrive in oz at the end of the year
regards
jackie & ken

Hi Ken and Jackie!

Good to hear from you both.
We too are looking at the Gold Coast, ideally around or on the border of Brisbane. But we're still researching locations etc.
Where on the Gold Coast are you hoping to settle? Any advice and feedback on areas (once you're there and reasonably settled) would be invaluable and it would be fantastic to keep in touch too.
How does you daughter feel about the move?
August will be here before you know it - where are you up to on that front?
Our meds are taking place Thursday and we've just agreed a sale on the house (fingers crossed all goes through smoothly)
Take care and speak soon.

Raccoons of Wigan (aka Chris, Jo and Ethan)

Hi racoons,

The wife and i arrived in Brisbane last october and I am loving every minute. We are from Preston so its a big change as you can imagine, but a good one and well worth it.

We live north side of the river, there does seem to be an amusing, north south divide in brisbane, not quite as big as the one back in england but still, we chose northern side, once northern, always northern!!

We live in an area called Stafford heights, thats around 15 mins away from CBD in good traffic, half an hour in rush hour.

I am pretty sure you should find plenty of work over here, i am an engineer and i have been shocked at the amount of work available, but i found seek was a very good website to use.

take it easy
Prestoners

Hi there!!!

We'll certainly put Stafford heights on list of places to consider. It sounds great and the short commute into Brisbane CBD is particularly appealing.
It sounds like you've settled well too - which is fantastic.
It's pretty daunting emmigrating to a place without ever having been, so an e-mail like yours is gold.

Keep in touch.

Best wishes
The Raccoons of Wigan!!!

Racoons!

No worries, if ya got anymore questions keep them coming, and we will try to help you as much as we can.

Any ideas how soon the big move is going to be?

Steve & Barb