# Want to move to Australia? Read this first.



## Grassy (Nov 4, 2014)

This is about my friend who moved to Perth 5 years ago.

He is from China and came to me. We went to a pub and had a couple of drinks. We started talking.

I've known him since he moved here as an Engineer. 

He got a job and sponsorship. Was paid $50,000 plus overtime. He thought it was great. It was triple what he gets back home. He thought he will get a job. Find a girlfriend. Buy a house. Get the average engineer wage after 5 years. 120k...

He is smart. Excellent grades. top 5% of the class. Very very good at his job.
He bought a house and it is now worth 100k less than he paid. 
His house cost him $500 a week, his after tax wage is $650, so he has $150 a week to use on food and bills. Food costs about $80 a week...
The house cost about 8x his wage.
He has no girlfriend because he cant afford to go out and socialise or afford a car and fuel because he would have to spend 2 hours a day driving so he uses a bus.
His wage has not gone up. They even cut his hours back to 3 days a week on top of that make him clean the office and toilets but he is registered as an engineer. He earns now about 30-50k depending on the week.
He tried applying for other jobs but there NO WORK. Even with his high skills and scores and experience 
He cant quit or he wont become a resident.
He has no savings, everything he brought over from China is spent.
He has not paid any of the principal of the house off.
He's been broken into 3 times in 5 years. 
The house was built in the 1930's and needs so much repairs but he cant afford them. Leaking roof. Lights that don't work. Badly cracked walls. 

He started crying in front of me because 2 weeks ago he turned 30 and he has gotten no where living in Australia. He said he thinks its being a slave. No opportunity. No progression. No family. No money. Nothing. All it is is wake up, work, go home, wake up work go home.

Last week he put his house up for sale and intends to leave Australia with 100k owing and never come back. 

To anyone coming to Australia. 

Please please please do your homework. 

Work out the TRUE cost of living. 

It broke my heart to sit and listen to him. Australia took everything from him. His youth, his best working years, his life and left him with a huge financial debt that he can never pay off. He said the only thing that motivates him to live is to get up to go to work to pay off more debt. 

It was so heartbreaking and depressing. 

Please please please do not sell your skills short. Do not accept a low wage thinking it will go up. IT DOES NOT GO UP. 

Please please everyone just make sure Australia is where you want to go. Please realise you will have nothing and will get paid less than minimum wage if you want the opportunity to 'live' in Australia. They have set the system up to take as much as they can from immigrants and give them nothing back. You will have to move to far out suburbs with no shops, no parks, no community, or a bad bad neighbourhood. Australia is a very one way 'our way or get out' culture. 

I don't want to see this happen to others


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## firelucifer (Oct 17, 2014)

Grassy said:


> His wage has not gone up. They even cut his hours back to 3 days a week on top of that make him clean the office and toilets but he is registered as an engineer. He earns now about 30-50k depending on the week.
> He tried applying for other jobs but there NO WORK. Even with his high skills and scores and experience
> He cant quit or he wont become a resident.


This is indeed depressing. May I ask why he hasn't applied for a PR within the past 5 years?


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## Grassy (Nov 4, 2014)

I think he's been 50/50 on if he should stay of go because its been so tough so now I think he does not want to be Australian. He's been working and working and working to try to make it, saving and trying to settle but after years and years he has nothing. 

Back home he could be living rent free, earning less but saving more. His sister on the mainland bought a unit at the same time he got a house here and she is a childrens teacher and now she has more than he does with a husband and child and they bought a second unit. Its just been a nightmare for him. I didn't know what do say to him. Apply for more jobs. Work harder. He hired a professional to do his CV and still nothing.

This year was the second year he has no pay rise. He said he needs one but the boss already has fired other staff and said no and he is lucky to have work. 

Maybe it is just his workplace but from what others have been saying too and from experience its not just an isolated case. There are lots of people coming in. starting at a very low wage. then it never goes up and they can never move or train for a better life because they are stuck with no money. This is the 3rd person I know who has left australia because of this. one went to new zealand. one to the USA and now one back home. 

All of them the same. This one was the worst because he has so much debt and no way to pay it back. 

Its very very sad.


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## Sennara (Jul 31, 2013)

I'm wondering how he made only $650 after tax and still get the mortgage to buy a house. Buying a house obviously exceeded his capability for the time being.

Thing is that, if one wants to make money, they should stay in China where there are more opportunities. Australia is not for gold-diggers. What they have here is just a cleaner environment. 

Moreover, whay can't he move to Sydney or Melbourne? I don't think there are that many IT jobs in Perth. Based on my understanding, most programmers get at least a 70K package at the beginning. 

Besides, he's been here for more than 5 years. Why can't he apply for a PR?


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## austrailadream (Apr 8, 2014)

Sad sad sad. that is what I could say at this point. 

Mistake 1: He did not sort out PR stuff, It could have helped him many ways in being flexible and moving to other cities for job. I think Sydney and Melbourne have way more IT jobs than anywhere in OZ.

Mistake 2: It is okay to do some odd jobs in the beginning but should not stick to it for that long. He should have landed a job in his professional domain though it could be less $$. 

Mistake 3: He used the formula people do use in China i.e. buy a house and then use it as a capability of him and go for a girl friend and then.....all those f* stuff in series

Mistake 4: He could have used $$ he took over there from China for his skill development and others..things like professional training, personality development, English skills etc.. Investment on these things would have surely helped him out with landing a job in his field.

Mistake 5: Short sighted. He should have done some assessment while he purchased the house or he could have gone for paid consultation about the housing market. But he seems to have jumped into it w/o considering any consequences. 

Mistake 6: goes on and on.... It is a ****ing long list of mistakes committed one after another. I do not want to go further. 

In conclusion, he is solely responsible for the situation he is in today. No one else could be blamed. It is not OZ'f fault. Of course, there are certain advantages to OZ from the immigrants ...that is a deal for both the immigrants and OZ.

My two cents: Do not migrate to any country before you are mature enough in terms of professional experience. You better spend more time in your field in your own country and once you are up to a level then you can consider moving forward with the migration.

That is it!!!


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## mebfm2 (Nov 4, 2014)

Please do not think of my reply as rude..but from the number of mistakes he made he would be in the same state whether he was in Aus or China or India or USA


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## austrailadream (Apr 8, 2014)

Also, we better be ready for the worst. It is always good to take the worst scenarios into consideration more than any other side of good things. That helps you. 

I currently pull in 50K RMB a month and I am damn sure that no employers in OZ would give me that much since they would surely show the lack of OZ experience as an execuse but I am ready to to take any job related to my professional skills with lower package. I decided to move to OZ is because of its nicer environment...the pollution kills me here and I do not want to raise my kid in such polluted air.


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## MarissaAnna (Sep 27, 2014)

My son and his fiance transferred to London six years ago with well-paid jobs. The GFC hit and they were both made redundant. It looked like both would be unemployed at the time of their wedding. They found new positions eventually but at lower pay. Meanwhile the Aussie dollar slid against the pound and the financial advantages of being there slipped away. When they came home after five years it took months to find new jobs.
However they made the best of their experience there even though it was not as lucrative as they hoped for. They left before gaining any type of permanent residency but it will always be a time in their life when they gained a lot, saw a lot and learnt to cope with unexpected setbacks.
Life does not follow a script. Who would have known the GFC would be so bad. We were actually blessed here compared to the rest of the western world.
Your friend was unrealistic in his salary expectations for a start. He may have confused average and median salaries in his field. He may have poor communication skills in English. He may have been not been prepared to travel to the mines to get the high pay. He obviously overcommitted himself in buying an old house and overpaid as I do not think property in WA has dropped that much in value. 
Australia was always a land of opportunity for unskilled workers like my father. It has probably never offered the same type of advantages for professionals. Especially if you are coming from a country where you are used to having household help and being admired because you are educated.
Yes, think carefully and research carefully, learn from the mistakes of others and work out your goals.


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## girlaussie (Nov 21, 2012)

I don't want to sound horrible but this situation is literally bizarre, why would somebody on Temporary visa like to invest his money in buying house (in all fairness, rental options are much better than buying your own property till you are not Permanent Resident). 

If he would have done some basic calculation even he survived in $50,000 as well. Also no point doing comparisons like: in China I could do this or I could have bought 3 houses in India etc, moving to a foreign land always bring lot of challenges which one must accept positively, maintain humble lifestyle & work hard. I know a guy who when moved to Australia brought huge amount which he spent on his studies/PR & eventually was completely broke. He went back home, pulled himself together & got back, I was surprised to know lately that he started from scratch & now he is doing fantastic & infact he brought his wife too (probably for extra support ;p ) so guess the point is never give-up, stay positive & don't forget your roots.

Girl Aussie


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## mainak (Feb 14, 2014)

> why would somebody on Temporary visa like to invest his money in buying house


 - prime reason why the concerns in this thread is actually not worthy to bring down the morale of whole expat community


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## _shel (Mar 2, 2014)

Yawn, we get one of these every once in a while who blames the country for all their own errors in judgement and ability.


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## MarissaAnna (Sep 27, 2014)

Also if he was earning $50k he should be clearing about $800 not $650!


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## ozbound12 (Mar 23, 2012)

So it's Australia's fault that he bought a house he couldn't afford and couldn't find a girlfriend?? I guess it's also Australia's fault that I don't have milk in the fridge for my morning coffee tomorrow.


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## MarissaAnna (Sep 27, 2014)

You just reminded me that neither do I. I think it must be the fault of the government! Black coffee for us tomorrow!


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## IndigoKKing (Jul 31, 2014)

ozbound12 said:


> So it's Australia's fault that he bought a house he couldn't afford and couldn't find a girlfriend?? I guess it's also Australia's fault that I don't have milk in the fridge for my morning coffee tomorrow.


They don't supply milk in the taps in Australia? Strange country! :confused2:


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## austrailadream (Apr 8, 2014)

IndigoKKing said:


> They don't supply milk in the taps in Australia? Strange country! :confused2:



Yeah, really strange.


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## TheExpatriate (Feb 7, 2014)

bad judgement and poor decisions will take you nowhere in Australia or elsewhere

His employer is abusing him because he doesn't have a PR. If he had a PR, then he won't have to take his employer's s**t and find another job.

Ditch the house and let the bank foreclose it even if it means declaring bankruptcy, there is no point in looping indefinitely


Again, I do not see anything Australia has done to wrong this guy ....


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## TheExpatriate (Feb 7, 2014)

IndigoKKing said:


> They don't supply milk in the taps in Australia? Strange country! :confused2:


ouch ..... I can't live without my taps .... I have milk, honey and milk/honey mix as well here


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## enzee (Nov 30, 2013)

austrailadream said:


> Sad sad sad. that is what I could say at this point.
> 
> My two cents: Do not migrate to any country before you are mature enough in terms of professional experience. You better spend more time in your field in your own country and once you are up to a level then you can consider moving forward with the migration.
> 
> That is it!!!


Couldn't agree more buddy, people make mistakes and to make them right make more mistakes and at the end they are in a situation like this guy.

May he recovers soon and get back on track.


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## MarissaAnna (Sep 27, 2014)

TheExpatriate said:


> ouch ..... I can't live without my taps .... I have milk, honey and milk/honey mix as well here


Sorry but I am afraid that you may find a vegemite tap here!


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## TheExpatriate (Feb 7, 2014)

MarissaAnna said:


> Sorry but I am afraid that you may find a vegemite tap here!


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## ozbound12 (Mar 23, 2012)

IndigoKKing said:


> They don't supply milk in the taps in Australia? Strange country! :confused2:


Milk taps?? I've never seen such a thing! LOL


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## TheExpatriate (Feb 7, 2014)

ozbound12 said:


> Milk taps?? I've never seen such a thing! LOL


you missed out on it ..... didn't you know that it's part of DIBP welcome pack for new migrants? 

/troll


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## _shel (Mar 2, 2014)

MarissaAnna said:


> Sorry but I am afraid that you may find a vegemite tap here!


 Gross, my 4 year old loves it though. His grandparents bring several every time they visit, the stuff in the UK is not good enough for him!


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## radical (Apr 21, 2014)

Grassy said:


> This is about my friend who moved to Perth 5 years ago.
> 
> He is from China and came to me. We went to a pub and had a couple of drinks. We started talking.
> 
> ...


Locals whine "Immigrants are taking away their jobs" and Immigrants cry that "there are no jobs here". Wonder where these jobs go??


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## _shel (Mar 2, 2014)

radical said:


> Locals whine "Immigrants are taking away their jobs" and Immigrants cry that "there are no jobs here". Wonder where these jobs go??


 Should hear the news in the UK the last few weeks, very anti immigrant, its not the immigrants per se, its the lack of work, the stupidly low minimum wage, workfare (work for the dole) taking the place of paid jobs, lack of affordable childcare. Oh the list could go on. 

News today is immigrants added 2bn to the economy more than they took out in welfare. So the rant is as you say, well they can only add because they took our jobs 

Not much different on opposite sides of the globe, same issues, same rants from the natives just a different country.


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## Gaut (Oct 13, 2014)

Basically a series of mistakes leading to a bad situation. Or probably the poster made up this story cause the mistakes are unbelievable.


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## sk2014 (Apr 7, 2014)

_shel said:


> Should hear the news in the UK the last few weeks, very anti immigrant, its not the immigrants per se, its the lack of work, the stupidly low minimum wage, workfare (work for the dole) taking the place of paid jobs, lack of affordable childcare. Oh the list could go on.
> 
> News today is immigrants added 2bn to the economy more than they took out in welfare. So the rant is as you say, well they can only add because they took our jobs
> 
> Not much different on opposite sides of the globe, same issues, same rants from the natives just a different country.


Funny thing is that I met a lot of British guys in Melbourne who wanted to live in Australia permanently because they thought that life/job/money is better in Aus compared to UK.


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## _shel (Mar 2, 2014)

sk2014 said:


> Funny thing is that I met a lot of British guys in Melbourne who wanted to live in Australia permanently because they thought that life/job/money is better in Aus compared to UK.


 Some British people are the worst, move overseas because immigrants are taking their jobs but never class themselves as immigrants or guests in the countries they land in and never give a second thought to the locals jobs they want.


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## tahanpaa (Mar 1, 2014)

Grassy said:


> This is about my friend who moved to Perth 5 years ago.
> 
> He is from China and came to me. We went to a pub and had a couple of drinks. We started talking.
> 
> ...


its ******** story


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## IndigoKKing (Jul 31, 2014)

ozbound12 said:


> Milk taps?? I've never seen such a thing! LOL


Now you've seen it all!

(Actually, I hadn't seen a milk tap too until I googled it just now. Don't emigrate to Oz, folks! To Orion's Arm, ahoy!)


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## TheExpatriate (Feb 7, 2014)

_shel said:


> Some British people are the worst, move overseas because immigrants are taking their jobs but never class themselves as immigrants or guests in the countries they land in and never give a second thought to the locals jobs they want.


tell me about it. Brits in the UAE are the worst offenders for this. They walk around the place like it's their own, commit offences, and when it's time to deport them they cry foul.


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## Blue Bird (Jul 23, 2013)

Hi Guys,
My state is South Australia.
Would you guide best time to move, residence cost , food cost, any clue.

Regards,


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## IndigoKKing (Jul 31, 2014)

Blue Bird said:


> Hi Guys,
> My state is South Australia.
> Would you guide best time to move, residence cost , food cost, any clue.
> 
> Regards,


Nothing spells irony like this question! :lol:

BlueBird... wrong thread, man! Totally wrong thread brother.


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## Blue Bird (Jul 23, 2013)

IndigoKKing said:


> Nothing spells irony like this question! :lol:
> 
> BlueBird... wrong thread, man! Totally wrong thread brother.


Actually I read the thread name if so its okay:fingerscrossed:


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## gerardOZ (Jul 13, 2014)

Blue Bird said:


> Actually I read the thread name if so its okay:fingerscrossed:


dude, at least read the content of the thread, we stick with the topic


anyway, your inquiry maybe one of the most asked and answered
thread just search using the top right "Google Custom Search" i just tried and gave
me thousands of results


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## kettlerope (Aug 12, 2014)

TheExpatriate said:


> Again, I do not see anything Australia has done to wrong this guy ....


... Probably except the job/earning opportunities that Australia couldn't give as many as China could have given due to apparent economic reasons. Obviously, China or India can give say 15% hike year over year on yearly salaries as these economies are growing too fast.. Australia can't afford that. Same goes with the new job creation. These aren't a country's faults though.


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## TheExpatriate (Feb 7, 2014)

kettlerope said:


> ... Probably except the job/earning opportunities that Australia couldn't give as many as China could have given due to apparent economic reasons. Obviously, China or India can give say 15% hike year over year on yearly salaries as these economies are growing too fast.. Australia can't afford that. Same goes with the new job creation.


this is not something where he was wronged. This is the country's circumstances, if a country faces unemployment, you can leave for better opportunities ... I left my country for better opportunities, and moved to another country, and then to a third country (where I live now), and now planning the move to Australia. 

I understand sometimes it's easier said than done, but an engineer making $650/week? you can make more than than on minimum wage x 40 hrs ! Your employer is abusing you? Apply for PR and liberate yourself.

Sorry, but I do not see any "Force Majeure" here in the story


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