Migrating down under? Come share your experiences

[Carndablues]

I think you misunderstood.

 

Medicare - Every Aussie & PR are entitled to medicare, be it you poor or rich. Ppl buy private insurance because they don't want to go public hospital(aka SGH, KK or TTS) but prefer private hospital(aka Mount A & Mount E).

I would double-check this if I were you. You will only get FREE immediate treatment at public hospitals under the Medicare scheme if your diagnosis is life-threatening, for other "elective" procedures, you will be put on a very long waiting list (ten years and up).

Those who choose private health cover is usually to supplement the Medicare cover, Medicare will allow you to goto Private hospitals, for any type of surgery, but they will only cover a certain percentage, not of the actual cost, but the cost that they think is correct.

eg. One of my family members had keyhole surgery administered by a surgeon using some sort of robotic device last year, this procedure can be done manually, and Medicare accounts for the traditional procedure, they paid back 75% of $6000 to my family member, the actual cost was $10000. Luckily, the balance was covered by his private medical cover.

And this was elective surgery, if he wanted to not pay anything, the waiting list for this procedure was 12 years.

 

Dole - are like insurance, every Aussie is entitled(PR after 2yr). if you are jobless the gov will pay you some "allowance", not much but enough for you to get by or till you get a job.

Again, check. Dole is means tested, if you have a certain amount of money, no matter how jobless you are, you will not get it.

 

Family Assistance - Also depends on total family income, the gov will pay you $ based on number of children you have, to help supplement your children upbringing expenses. That is why you see most family here, only the husband is working while wife stay at home looking after children because if they make too much then they are not entitled.

Please check up on what "too much money" means and report to the audience here.....you will find it's not a lot.

 

Most Aussie are ok with this form of taxation & benefits, it is those who make 150-200k(the top 20%) a year that feel they are worst off, most middle income Aussie family makes 60-70k a year(60%). So yes, Genie are right, most Aussie are happy with this type of arrangement. Tax the rich, help the middle and poor while opposite is true with Spore.

If they are, why does the Aussie government have one of the most draconian taxation laws in the world? Aussies are, and have been, sick of paying taxes, each year, they will come up with a new scheme to dodge taxes, and each year, the government will introduce a new law covering it.

 

eg. Be a contractor instead of a fulltime employee, that way you can incorporate a company, get the company you are working for to pay your company instead of you as company taxes are fixed at 30+% of profits made. You can then claim car, meals, home office, whatever...

So they've closed this loophole now by stipulating you need to work for at least three different companies in one fiscal year, and you need to prove that any vehicle claims are for genuine business purposes by keeping a detailed log book etc and so on.

 

Various members of my family have been living in Oz since the early 70s, they are all very middle class, but yet the Government says otherwise (they had a COMBINED income in excess of 150k a year, husband/wife) and they feel very much ripped off.

 

A few of them are in retirement age and they are scared cos the Government will not provide for them. They have tried applying for pension, but again, have failed b'cos they are "rich" according to the Oz government, yet when I visit them, they are in the same old 15 year old car. They have the same, old 20 year old furniture, freeze in Winter cos they don't want to pay too much for heating (they just dress warmer indoors) and they sweat in Summer (cos they don't want to buy an airconditioner which they will only use 4 months of the year)....are they happy....I'm not convinced.

 

[Carndablues]

....are they happy....I'm not convinced.

 

Actually, I have to backtrack on those words.

 

Their kids are happy, cos for most of them, they are Singaporean, and they have sons. If they stayed behind in Singapore, their sons would be doing NS now.

[Carndablues]

A lot of ppl there do creative accounting to get back what's tax on them. For example, set up a company and whatever renumeration given to you is payed to your company instead of directly to you. You then buy whatever you want in the form of company expenses to reduce the profit and thus less tax.

 

This loophole has been closed for a few years now.

[Carndablues]

Take owning a vehicle for example:

 

In Singapore, owning a car is not a necessity. In Oz, it is.

 

[Carndablues]

Con

1) Everything have to DIY as labour cost is expensive. Maid is not possible. Well, one trick is getting maid is to register your maid as student and sign up a course there for her plus deposit of money into bank to prove that she can survive throughout the course. Prohibisively expensive.

 

Funny thing about that. My first job after graduation, I was working in Oz for a while and my Aussie boss had a maid from China. He wanted to matchmake us at one stage, I was like...

 

Anyway, he told me what he paid her, something like $4000 a month, at that time, being my first job, she was paid more than me!

[Darryn]

Well someone has to raise the average IQ of Australia.

 

Yeah well sir rob had it right - they raise the average IQ of both countries

[Solar]

i have quite a few friends migrated to australia, and a couple who didn't make it (or rather, decided to return).

 

looking at them, my opinion, going there isn't about earning big bucks.. sg is still the place to earn $$$ (just look at the number of foreigners gushing in maciam gold rush).

[Darryn]

i have quite a few friends migrated to australia, and a couple who didn't make it (or rather, decided to return).

 

looking at them, my opinion, going there isn't about earning big bucks.. sg is still the place to earn $$$ (just look at the number of foreigners gushing in maciam gold rush).

[Spade]

yup most of what you guys have said is true... lived it myself. I loathe the high price of property here. But Oz has so many other issues that we must be able to live with.

[Trex101]

I would double-check this if I were you. You will only get FREE immediate treatment at public hospitals under the Medicare scheme if your diagnosis is life-threatening, for other "elective" procedures, you will be put on a very long waiting list (ten years and up).

Those who choose private health cover is usually to supplement the Medicare cover, Medicare will allow you to goto Private hospitals, for any type of surgery, but they will only cover a certain percentage, not of the actual cost, but the cost that they think is correct.

eg. One of my family members had keyhole surgery administered by a surgeon using some sort of robotic device last year, this procedure can be done manually, and Medicare accounts for the traditional procedure, they paid back 75% of $6000 to my family member, the actual cost was $10000. Luckily, the balance was covered by his private medical cover.

And this was elective surgery, if he wanted to not pay anything, the waiting list for this procedure was 12 years.

 

- Hmm... I don't know abt that but my sis-in-law just went for fibroid removal in her womb, pay around $120+ admin fee or something and that's it. Wait from diagnose to surgery around 3mth.

 

 

Again, check. Dole is means tested, if you have a certain amount of money, no matter how jobless you are, you will not get it.

 

- This i don't know as i'm not qualify for it yet. hahahhha since new PR need to stay >2yr before you can apply it thru Centrelink

 

 

Please check up on what "too much money" means and report to the audience here.....you will find it's not a lot.

 

- It's quite complicated on the calculation for FTB-A & FTB-B but something like full claim from 42k and get lower and lower until 94k get nil. So if your family income reach 94.1k then tough luck, you get nothing even if you have 10 kids. The Aussie gov will pay you per child i think around A$300+ per mth, so if 2 child around $600+

 

 

Various members of my family have been living in Oz since the early 70s, they are all very middle class, but yet the Government says otherwise (they had a COMBINED income in excess of 150k a year, husband/wife) and they feel very much ripped off.

 

A few of them are in retirement age and they are scared cos the Government will not provide for them. They have tried applying for pension, but again, have failed b'cos they are "rich" according to the Oz government, yet when I visit them, they are in the same old 15 year old car. They have the same, old 20 year old furniture, freeze in Winter cos they don't want to pay too much for heating (they just dress warmer indoors) and they sweat in Summer (cos they don't want to buy an airconditioner which they will only use 4 months of the year)....are they happy....I'm not convinced.

 

Making 150k pa is doing pretty fine here, of course they get nothing. I don't understand why they so cat on heating and cooling? My winter gas bills are around $120 for 2mth, Elec around $110 3mth & water $100 3mth. Work out to be A$130 mthly, not so bad i think for a 3 bedroom detach. They make $12.5k per mth and cannot afford $130 per mth power bills..... this i really don't understand.

 

The bottom line is if you make alot of money, Australia is not a place for you, you are much better of in Spore. If you are just a avg Joe, you will enjoy a better standard of living here in Aussie. So at the end of the day, you have to decided what is it you after in life.

Edited December 21, 2009 by Trex101

[Trex101]

the other friend i mentioned earlier, came back after 1yr. wife cannot tahan, no maid, can't drive, husband earning lesser yet taxed higher, can't assimilate into angmor culture, lots of diy needed...

[Genie47]

My thoughts here on SG actually not so much about AU.

 

SG is a Sartrean Hell. Cheem right? Let me explain. Sartre is a playright and he wrote this one called No Exit.

 

Unlike the hell that is described by Dante, where you got poets who are denied speaking so that their words cannot go out etc which are forms of eternal torture.

 

In Sartre's version, there is no torture. Only slight physical discomfort. The suffering is provided by the damned's own manias and their mutual company and, of course, the everlasting nature of the situation; the native inhabitants merely sort arrivals into the right company. Hence what is probably Sartre's most famous phrase, l'enfer, c'est les autres.

 

Singapore is like Sartre's version of hell. The misery is self-inflicted or by our fellow damned.....sorry citizens. We are not kept here physically by force but do not escape. Well some do escape but not in a meaningful way. Suffering is provided by the dysfunctional relationships we have established. I'm not saying we have broken homes or families and drug addicts and drunks to gambling addicts. It is our relationship with the powers that be.

 

We have a means of ending this trauma but we don't. Either by making a positive change in government or by what this thread says, leaving in a planned meaningful way.

 

Those that left and did not make a meaningful difference are those that returned. Upset, failed and unhappy.

[Darryn]

Wah...so deep so early in the morning till I go crosseyed trying to read.

 

But too true, at the end of the day I think here in Singapore need to appreciate the good things more, in general too many people focus on what's wrong instead of what's right.

 

[Carndablues]

- This i don't know as i'm not qualify for it yet. hahahhha since new PR need to stay >2yr before you can apply it thru Centrelink

 

Oh, so you're a new immigrant, ok then, won't bust your chops. All the best to you!

 

And be careful about surfing the net at work, those aussies might be smiling and laughing in front of your face, but they might also one day use this against you.

[Hermit]

Oh, so you're a new immigrant, ok then, won't bust your chops. All the best to you!

 

And be careful about surfing the net at work, those aussies might be smiling and laughing in front of your face, but they might also one day use this against you.

 

Erm.. I think, he IS the boss

 

[Yeshe]

in fact i was considering about NZ. my uncle and cousins are there since 1997. visited them 2 yrs ago and it was one of the most relaxing place. i agree with some bros here mentioning about the taxation system and i just wonder if we could take advantage of the situation by having a low pay job while having sg properties on rental giving u the extra income? in this way, u get all the benefits from both worlds

Edited December 22, 2009 by Yeshe

[Tjkbeluga]

in fact i was considering about NZ. my uncle and cousins are there since 1997. visited them 2 yrs ago and it was one of the most relaxing place. i agree with some bros here mentioning about the taxation system and i just wonder if we could take advantage of the situation by having a low pay job while having sg properties on rental giving u the extra income? in this way, u get all the benefits from both worlds

You still need money to buy a 2nd property in OZ or else you'll need to pay high rental. Home loan % is high too....

[Trex101]

in fact i was considering about NZ. my uncle and cousins are there since 1997. visited them 2 yrs ago and it was one of the most relaxing place. i agree with some bros here mentioning about the taxation system and i just wonder if we could take advantage of the situation by having a low pay job while having sg properties on rental giving u the extra income? in this way, u get all the benefits from both worlds

 

NZ countryside are much more scenic than Australia and even more lay back. Seriously I wouldn't mind NZ but as i'm more familiar with Australia, i decided that's the place i want to go.

 

Don't say low pay job, make enough can liao. I rent out my 4rm HDB and got back 2k mthly but since A$ has appreciate 30% since i arrived, the value when converted only come out to be A$1.5k but it's a good supplement, just nice for the rental.