ShaunWilson

Huge Maglite torch off the head is good. "I heard a noise officer, grabbed my torch to investigate, startled me when i heard him, turned round and the torch accidently hit him in the head as i turned. No i did not swing at him intentionally, i don't know how he fractured his skull, but it is a heavy torch".

Geelong (start of GOR) to Adelaide is about 9.5 hours. Did it last week for work.

No, not for me.

Just on an aside, remember the more you earn, the greater the amount of taxes need to be paid, combined with little or no money from the government for family assistence, child benefits etc. Not saying either opinion is right or wrong, and not commenting on my own personal circumstance (as it's got nothing to do with anyone but me), however if both are working to make that money, then child care costs would need to be factorde in. One of our kids is in childcare at the moment, and we don't qualify for any help, and the cost for one day is around $80.00. So 2 kids for a few hours each day would be around $200.00 per week maybe? So just remember, the more you earn, the higher taxes are paid, due to increasing tax brackets, and the less support from the government. On the flip side, if they know they have these outgoings, they they should budget accordingly. As we all should.

And your point about Scotland and Wales is what?

To be fair to Utd, that Barca team would make ANYONE look Ordinary. Look what they have done to the rest of the Spanish teams.

Same as UK

Unfortunately i'm out, too many things to get done before heading off on business trip interstate.

Completely agree. And if your religion involves extra costs, including muslim only schools, then i shouldn't have to pay for them. Pretty sure there is nothing racist in having that belief? If you want to live in a muslim coutry, and be taught at a muslim school, then go there.

Australia was founded by Christians from the UK. IMO it is a predominatly chrisian country, even though i am not religious in the slightest.

Will try to get there, depends on commitments. Think i'll be diplomatic and wear the scotland top and not club top. Fits a that aboot

Gill, Your looking about an hour and half from Noarlunga to Elizabeth in the rush hour at the moment. Hope this helps.

Well done guys, knew it would come in the end, you guys have hung in there and have got what you really wished for. Best of luck with the future (and hope baby doing well too, we had ours Saturday!!)

Sorry, but got to correct you there, time spent as temp res also counts. Taken from DIAC website "4 years LAWFUL residence in Australia. This period must include 12 months as a perm res immediately before submitting an application for Australian citizenship AND Abscences from Australia of no more than 12 months in total in the 4 years prior to application, including not more than 90 days in the 12 months immediately prior to the application" Hope this helps clear this up.

Just wanted o ask advice of anyone who has been in same situation. Our goreous little girl was born yesterday, and now we are perm residents, she is automatically an Aussie citizen, and entitled to a Aus Passport. However the rest of us all have UK passports. When our last child was born here, we had to get a UK passport, and this took forever, we are planning on going back to uk in several months for a holiday and to let grandparents meet the 2 grandkids they haven't met yet, but how will this work with our new child having Aus passport, and the rest of us having UK passports? Anyone been in this situation and had any problems?

Have had a couple of weird ones, but not in SA. First tim eit happened was not long after we got here, I had to go to Uganda for work on oil rig, and ended up working with a guy i went to school with. On the way back i had to stay in Singapore for a few days for flight connections, went to a bar and bumped into one of my old neighbours!! That was a really wierd experience, and can't really remember much of that night after about 9pm. Although saying that, the oil and gas drilling industry is a small world, and lots of people from all over the world get to know each other!

I would offer to buy them from you, but i think my wife has forgotten where the kitchen is!!!! Ok, time to run and hide!

I got the Sony e-reader, and love it. I travel lots on business within Aus and overseas, and it saves me dragging loads of books all over with me, and I also load lots of work PDF files onto i that i can read on the plane at the same time. Massive amount of bttery life too.

Well for my 2 cents worth, if you commit a serious enough crime that involves jail time, and hence a huge cost for keeping you in jail at the taxpayers expense, then i would much rather have the govt fork out for an air fare and say goodbye. This is for ALL nationalities before anyone thinks i'm trying to single out anyone else in particular. You come to a foreign country to live, you abide by their laws. If not, leave.

Got a couple of them living in our huge yukka plant in the front garden. Stunning when you see the sunset through the web.

Need any help when you get here, give us a shout.

NAB gave us 80% mortgage when we were on our 457 temp visas. No problem at all. We hadn't even applied for our PR at the time.

Would like to comment of the OP. We came over here on sposored visa's from the company i work for. We have around 25 people work out of our office, of which there are only 3 you would class in the "white-westernised" bracket alluded to by the OP. The boss (who is Italian Australian), me (Scottsih) and one of our field engineers (Australian). The rest are all creeds and colurs from Indians, PNG nationals, Poles, South Americans, and a few more. We work in a very demanding, and not to dumb it down, hard industry, drilling for oil and gas. The people on these rigs call it like they see it, but we have had no problems with any of them. Our company philosiphy is if your qualified, you get a fair go.

We took ours over from UK, and all we did was go back into the original set up menu and select region as australia.

Be aware of FBT though. Just finished filling in all my forms for work. If you SS a car, the payments are taken from you salary BEFORE tax, thus reducing the amount of tax you are liable to in the tax year, however, if you do not do the stated km's, you are liable for fringe benefits tax. This taxation rate is far greater than your normal income tax rate, so you will end up paying more.