Information about Australia

[oggbashan]

I take it you've never been to Nimbin, then?

I had relations who farmed near Nimbin over fifty years ago. It was just a quiet rural backwater place then.

 

[warrior queen]

https://www.expatistan.com/cost-of-living/perth-australia

https://www.budgetdirect.com.au/interactives/costofliving/

 

[pensivepoet]

The do struggle with the game of cricket.

Their bobsled team sucks too.

 

[colddiesel]

Immigration Permits.

Look up or ring the Australian Consul General in Chicago. That covers 10 or a dozen states in the mid west USA. Visas for North Americans are administered from a Canadian office.

Don't assume we want you as a migrant. If you are a graduate engineer or better that would likely help.You also need to be healthy and reasonably young. There are student visas, temporary visas, special (sponsered)visas for particular types of work, and permanent visas.

A few facts:-

1 Australia is almost exactly the same size as the lower 48 states of the USA.

2 WA the state of which Perth is the capital is 4 times the size of Texas with one tenth of the population. In fact there are slightly more Texans on the planet than Australians (about 23/24 million of each)

3 Perth is 1600+miles from any city of comparable size. It is the most remote city - from other cities on earth. It is 10,000 miles + from Chicago, and closer to Singapore than Sydney.

4 Climate is good - long hot dry summers, short cool winters - think San Diego Cal.

5 About 40% of the population of Perth are migrants, Brits, especially Scots ,N Zedders, South Africans, are major groups.

6 Engineering jobs in Perth are a bit tricky at the moment due to recession in the mining industries. Chances are prolly better in Sydney or Melbourne. It is much better if you can get a job to go to but that depends a lot on age, employability and heaps else. Make sure your qualifications stack up and count before you apply.

7 There are about 150,000 to 200,000 Americans living in Oz at present.

If you are serious do some research yourself , particularly of job prospects. I used to run my own business largely placing engineering staff and skilled tradesmen in the mining industry. Post 2008 I brought out about 40 Americans to pre- arranged jobs, but with the down turn in mining in the last 18 months there are less opportunities.

 

[ndoorfin]

View attachment 1857828

 

[oggbashan]

Politics here is wonderful. We've had five Prime Ministers in five years and when they're not too busy ousting one another they're truly devoted to the big issues - like Johhny Depp's dogs.

Australia is the only country to lose a Prime Minister who went swimming. His body was never found. Imagine the crisis if that happened to a US President.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Holt

Two days later Australia had another Prime Minister.

 

[Hard_Rom]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ooD1YomnCE

Be careful of the roaming gangs of nomad bikers!

 

[ishtat]

Australia is the only country to lose a Prime Minister who went swimming. His body was never found. Imagine the crisis if that happened to a US President.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Holt

Two days later Australia had another Prime Minister.

Harold Holt was also well known as Australia's most lecherous PM. Bob Hawke ran him pretty close, but Bill Sneddon a successor of Holt as Liberal leader takes the palm - he managed to die of a heart attack in a brothel!

 

[Saint Peter]

A hard way to go.

 

[MichaelinChina]

edit: bullshit

 

[oggbashan]

Harold Holt was also well known as Australia's most lecherous PM. Bob Hawke ran him pretty close, but Bill Sneddon a successor of Holt as Liberal leader takes the palm - he managed to die of a heart attack in a brothel!

Not quite for Bill Sneddon.

Death

On 27 June 1987, just hours after attending John Howard's election campaign launch, Snedden suffered a fatal heart attack at the Travelodge at Rushcutters Bay, Sydney, while having sex with an ex-girlfriend of his son Drew. Melbourne newspaper The Truth headlined its report "Snedden died on the job", while the Sydney Morning Herald reported that Snedden was wearing a condom and that "it was loaded".

Nor for President Faure of France. He was actually in his office:

Death

Faure died suddenly from apoplexy in the Élysée Palace on 16 February 1899, at a critical juncture while engaged in sexual activities in his office with 30-year-old Marguerite Steinheil. It has been widely reported that Felix Faure had his fatal seizure while Steinheil was fellating him, but the exact nature of their sexual intercourse is in fact unknown and such reports may have stemmed from various jeux de mots (puns) made up afterward by his political opponents. One such pun was to nickname Mme Steinheil "la pompe funèbre" (wordplay in French: "pompes funèbres" means "death care business" and "pompe funèbre" could be translated, literally, as "funeral pump"). George Clemenceau's epitaph of Faure, in the same trend, was "Il voulait être César, il ne fut que Pompée" (another wordplay in French; could mean both "he wished to be Caesar, but ended up as Pompey", or "he wished to be Caesar and ended up being blown": the verb "pomper" in French is also slang for performing oral sex on a man); Clemenceau, who was also editor of the newspaper L'Aurore, wrote that "upon entering the void, he [Faure] must have felt at home". After his death, some alleged extracts from his private journals, dealing with French policy, were published in the Paris press.

They were beginners compared with UK Prime Minister Lloyd George:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1023182/David-Lloyd-George-A-promiscuous-Premier.html

There was a popular song: Lloyd George knew my father; Father knew Lloyd George.

It should have been 'Lloyd George knew my mother; Father WAS Lloyd George'!

 

[colddiesel]

Not quite for Bill Sneddon.

Death

 

[oggbashan]

colddiesel? Your post seems incomplete.

Bill Sneddon didn't die in a brothel, as suggested by Ishtat, but in a Travelodge with a woman he knew, not a prostitute.

Still an unfortunate way to lose a politician...

 

[RustyIron]

Hey guy's it's a great place to be, everyone's being paranoid. East coast best options more opportunities. Really depends on what you want to do, and what environment you want to be in.
Good luck

 

[Radiohead]

How accepting are they to alternative lifestyles ?

Sydney has the mardi gras and noone dies, so accepting enough. However you couldnt pay me enough to LIVE in Sydney, so, theres that.

 

[colddiesel]

colddiesel? Your post seems incomplete.

Bill Sneddon didn't die in a brothel, as suggested by Ishtat, but in a Travelodge with a woman he knew, not a prostitute.

Still an unfortunate way to lose a politician...

Well he certainly knew her -at least biblically!

I think Ishtat is wrong but I also think your account doesn't entirely stack up Og, and I'm pretty sure my own won't - because it cannot be proved one way or t'other:-

1 Snedden died of a heart attack during or following sex.

2 Initially some rags suggested he died in a brothel and was later transported to the hotel where he died. Official reports state he died at the hotel.

3 Some say he died with a prostitute.

4 Some say it was a well known young fashion designer, Pru Acton. She denied it and produced proof that she was out of state at the time. But many preferred to believe her involvement and she found it difficult to shake off. The Family(Bills son) later claimed to know who the woman was but had made no prior attempt to support Acton.

5 Police involvement was minimal once they established it was natural causes they had no interest.

6 19 years later Andrew Snedden, Bills, son said the woman with Bill was one of his ex girlfriends. He gave a name to two different newspapers. Both papers published straight away to avoid losing the scoop to the other. This became the most widely accepted version and is referred to as fact by Wikipedia.

7 However, both papers then tried to seek out the named woman - they couldn't find her. In fact it appeared that no-one of that name had ever existed. However, the two papers which may have been fooled by Snedden junior gave no publicity to their own incompetence.

8 The only addition I can bring to the story is that Sydney's best known high class brothel at the time,"A Touch of Class" had an arrangement whereby they could book a suite at any one of two or three Sydney hotels at very short notice to accommodate VIP clients. The Travelodge was onesuch establishment. My source for that info is the guy who was COO at the hotel company at the time.

Incidentally "A Touch of class" had a privacy problem at their Riley Street premises, and this is well documented.

Points 1 and 5 are fact, the remainder and much else have been subject to endless speculation.

Snedden's family have been consistent in one regard, they have always insisted he was not with a prostitute - tho' how would they know, and why would the police tell them alone who the woman was? And why 19 years after the event did the papers accept what appears to be another porky about the identity of the woman.

Mebbe because the story sells - even now.

Ironic really that Snedden achieved such notoriety in death. In his political carreer the cartoonists had labelled him 'Mr Mediocrity.'

 

[oggbashan]

Well he certainly knew her -at least biblically!

I think Ishtat is wrong but I also think your account doesn't entirely stack up Og, and I'm pretty sure my own won't - because it cannot be proved one way or t'other:-

...

Ironic really that Snedden achieved such notoriety in death. In his political carreer the cartoonists had labelled him 'Mr Mediocrity.'

Thank you for the extended version. Conspiracy theories win again.

We had our own Mr Mediocrity Prime Minister - the 'Grey Man' John Major. The later revelation that he was bonking his Cabinet Minister Edwina Currie was a shock. We didn't think anyone would want to have sex with him, or with Edwina Currie.

 

[Hard_Rom]

If you're a smoker you might want to rethink the move. The government just approved a new tobacco excise, making them $40 a pack.

Good bloody idea! Make some money from taxes and reduce smoking. I assume there are no tobacco farms in Australia. Used to a huge industry here in SW Ontario. Farmers lobby for years had enough power to keep prices and taxes lower. Rural schools used terms not semesters so youths could work the fields at harvest time. High school never really got going until 3rd week of September. Too many kids working. Paid as much as 100$ a day back in the 70s. Huge money!

What about things like vapes and Nicorette products? Lower prices to encourage getting off the demon weed?

 

[warrior queen]

Good bloody idea! Make some money from taxes and reduce smoking. I assume there are no tobacco farms in Australia. Used to a huge industry here in SW Ontario. Farmers lobby for years had enough power to keep prices and taxes lower. Rural schools used terms not semesters so youths could work the fields at harvest time. High school never really got going until 3rd week of September. Too many kids working. Paid as much as 100$ a day back in the 70s. Huge money!

What about things like vapes and Nicorette products? Lower prices to encourage getting off the demon weed?

Ironically, vaping is legal but the nicotine liquid is not.
People are importing the nicotine from overseas, but if you get caught there is a fine.
The price is comparable to being a light/social smoker.
Nicorette products are around $30 each, which is why the disadvantaged are higher smokers.

 

[Hard_Rom]

I use a Nicorette mister at 35$ Cdn. About a cartons worth.

I would have thought non-cigarette/cigar vaping/Nicorette type products would be pushed by the government. Almost sounds like a tax grab instead of an anti-smoking health policy.

 

[warrior queen]

I use a Nicorette mister at 35$ Cdn. About a cartons worth.

I would have thought non-cigarette/cigar vaping/Nicorette type products would be pushed by the government. Almost sounds like a tax grab instead of an anti-smoking health policy.

It is a tax grab.
They estimate the tobacco price hike will bring in 20 billion over the next 10 yrs.

 

[Hard_Rom]

Excellent thinking. Kudos to the Aussie ruling regime. All party support?

 

[AcidBurn74]

I moved to Australia six years ago, from Canada. As already stated earlier, the wages are good but the cost of living is high. Healthcare is fairly good, and I've had little wait time trying to see specialists on the few occasions I needed them.

If you're living in a bigger center, like Perth or any other city, I don't think you'll have much trouble with an alternative lifestyle. I live out in the sticks, and still hear people referring to gay men as "poofters". Racism and xenophobia also make appearances.

After all that, I still love it here. Despite the disgustingly hot summers, the racism, xenophobia, and the distance from everywhere else, it's a great place.

If you have any questions about the immigration process, don't hesitate to PM me.