Move to Australia and New Zealand

Our move to Australia

2010-11-25T18:07:00.000-08:00

We moved to Australia when my wife was offered a job in a regional town in New South Wales, Australia. We reached Australia in August on work visa 457, which is an employer sponsored work visa. The process of applying this visa was quick and we did not face any problem. We applied this visa on May and it took about slight over a month to be approved - mainly because the job offer was there and it was nominated by the employer.

The 457 visa was a two step process which was the employer was to nominate the employee and thereafter the employee would need to submit an application. Documents required were fairly simple which were the employment contract, proof of health coverage (not required for NZ citizens), x-ray (or full medical check up if you are working in a classroom environment or in health care), proof of identity such as passport, police clearance from countries which you have stayed for over a year in the past 10 years. If the spouse is in the application the marriage certificate and of course the application fees. For more details you can visit the Australian immigration website.

Under the visa 457, we can request the employer to nominate us to for residency status under visa subclass 856 or visa subclass 857 if your application is in a regional town. I shall discuss more details of the differences in these visas in my subsequent blogs. As in our case we applied under visa subclass 857 as we are in a regional town. There are many other classes of visa to be considered depending on each individual's circumstances.

Under the visa 457, we have to pay half international school fees for our daughter which amounts to AUD4,500 pa. We were lucky that we are a New Zealand resident and we have access to the free accommodation in the public hospital but we would still be required to pay for the medical costs. As a New Zealand resident we are do enjoy the Pharmaceutical Benefit Scheme under the reciprocal aggrement between Australia and New Zealand which provides only a minimal subsidy. However the pharmaceutical costs here is far more expensive as compared to New Zealand. Should you be from another country please check the if your country is covered under the reciprocal health care. Each country's agreement differs from one to another. It would be advisable to at lease take a cover for health insurance should you move to Australia since medical cost can be very expensive. Unless we are a resident of Australia we would not be covered under the Medicare. Some of the insurance company that provides for imigrants are Medibank, nib, HCF and more.

This visa 457 is merely a work permit allowing you to work legally in Australia but it provides little entitlements. For example application for loans and credit card could be difficult given the situation that either we do not have any credit standing or we are non resident as required in most Credit Unions or some credit card companies. As such it is advisable to quickly launch your residency application soonest possible for you to be entitled to more benefits.

Schooling in New Zealand and Australia

2010-11-22T23:26:00.000-08:00

New Zealand

In New Zealand children can enter primary school at full age of 5 as a new entrant but the compulsory schooling age was 6. After Year 6, children would go to a year intermediate school before progressing to high school.

The "good" schools are usually zoned and unless we stay within the zone, getting into the school could be difficult. Due to that house rental and prices of house within the zone tend to be costlier. A good indicator if it is a good school would be to look at the school's decile which is published by the Ministry of Education..The decile is based on the socioeconomic background of the parents.

There is not set syllabus in the New Zealand primary schools as the teacher would go according to the child's needs. The emphasis would generally be focused on reading and numeracy. There is no examination until the child reaches Year 12 where they would sit for an examination by the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA). Some school however do offer Cambridge examinations.

Australia

Children start school in Australia depending on state starts school at the age of 5 or 6. In NSW the compulsory age is 6. The schooling system is more demanding in Australia as compared to New Zealand. Generally it has more homework and examinations as compared to New Zealand. The examination which is National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy or NAPLAN in short is conducted by the Goverment for all schools in Australia started in 2008.

When we arrive

2010-11-22T04:10:00.000-08:00

My wife left for New Zealand 3 months prior to my daughter and I as she had to start work whilst I had to attend to things back home before leaving. It was a difficult moment especially for my daughter especially when she was only 4 years old. So to those who plan to relocate, a consideration was whether to move together as a family.

When my daughter and I reached New Zealand, it was an emotional reunion for my daughter as well as acclimatising to the new surrounding. My wife had already settled with a rental unit and bought a used car costing us about NZD2,500 from a car dealer. The car was then 12 years old but the condition was not too bad for its age, although we did spend some money to maintain the car later. Most Kiwis however like to shop at trademe.co.nz, a website similar to ebay.

When I reached there the first few things I started to look for was the kindergarten for our daughter as most other important things such as banking, Internet access, power had been done by my wife. New settlers would consider the the following to be top of their list such as accommodation short term and in the longer term rental, bank account, power, water depending on area such as Auckland, home content insurance, doctors etc. New Zealand as well as Australia normally request references for important transactions such as renting a house. As such it would be handy if you could get ready some referees who are willing to help.

I would advise you to do some research on the best services you wish to subscribe. One of the recommended site would be Consumer which is an independant organisation that tests on products and services offered in New Zealand. Do lots of research as it would save you lots of money and a good service or product in the long run.

The big move

2010-11-21T20:03:00.000-08:00

What we did during our big move

After our residency was approved and my wife job offer was confirmed, we have only about 2 months to prepare to move. I remember that period was very stressful as I have to cope with the feeling of leaving our relatives back home as well as to arrange for some of our stuff to be sent to New Zealand. One of a main question most migrant would ask if whether to ship their things over to the new country. Although New Zealand would not tax on GST on the items that you bring in for your first visit In my personal opinion I if far easier to start from scratch and only bring over those things which have some sentimental value. This is not only due to the cost of freight but also the uncertainty of where you would be settling in within the first year. It is more than likely that you would rent a house and moving all the furniture would add to the burden of moving.

Prior to our move I had sell off our property in Malaysia. As the time to sell of the property is horrendously lengthy I am lucky that my sister was able to manage the sale for me. I had drawn up a power of attorney for this purpose. I would advise those who faces such situation to do the same but the person you name in the power of attorney must be trustworthy and willing to do this task. I had also discontinued the power and water supply. For those who wishes to rent out your property, it is advisable to get someone reliable to manage it.

It is also important to nominate someone who is reliable to handle your financial affairs should you missed out something important and you are not present to attend to it then.

One other very important task is to get your tax clearance as you would not want to be detained at the airport for any potential tax liabilities.

Lastly, we had a farewell gathering, which was a moment filled with mixed emotions of sadness, excitedment and anxiousness. A moment which you would leave and start to miss your loved ones. You might also have doubts if you had made a right decisions where you embark into a new journey.

Our application of residency to New Zealand

2010-11-17T18:50:00.000-08:00

New Zealand - Residency Application under Skilled Migrant Category

Recalling the time when we checked our eligibility on the New Zealand Immigrations website and lodging our Expression of Interest (EOI) was daunting. It is one of our life's unforgettable moments which had changed our life. We had to provide documentary evidence to support the claims that we claimed under the Skilled Migrant Category. The cost of submitting our EOI was NZD300.00 then.

The minimum points to be eligible then was 100 and we claimed 110 based on the website. Should we have 140 points we would automatically be drawn into the pool for the next stage which was Invitation to Apply (ITA).We had to wait anxiously for our application to be drawn which took about 5 months.

When we was then invited to submit our ITA, the immigrations officer then slashed our points to only 90 reason being that the employment was not a full time employment since the employment letter did not state the working hours and the definition of full time was a minimum of 30 hours a week. The immigrations had called my wife's firm and had been informed that she only lectures 16 hours a week thus not qualifying for full time work. However they did not put into consideration for her preparation time, student consultation time which would easily meet the 30 hours mark. They had also slashed my tertiary education points as I have not attended my convocation which was only scheduled to be held later part of the year.However I have already passed the required exams to be eligible for graduation. As such we had to write and justify our stand on how we derived on our points claimed. To make matters worse the Case Officers kept on changing and our files were transferred from Bangkok to Singapore. We had dealt with 4 different Case Officers.

In our application we have to provide proof or identity, police clearance for countries which we had stood over a year in the last 10 years, marriage certificates, health check, employment letters, proof of qualification, proof of English proficiency etc. All documents have to be translated into English by a qualified translator.

Meanwhile my wife and I had started to apply for positions in New Zealand. It was difficult as most employers would prefer the candidate to be onshore. My wife got lucky as she had good recommendation to one of her application for a position in a university. She was offered a telephone interview then. However she had a long wait for the result of her telephone interview before she was called for her second interview after 3 months of waiting. She then flew to New Zealand and went for a face to face interview but was asked to wait for the result of the interview. It was a nail biting experience as we was wishing for the job offer to go through and our residency application would therefore be a mere formality.

A month after the wait my wife received an email offering her the position in the University and the rest of the application was smooth sailing. If not for the job offer we would have to go for an interview and I was told that we would be ask on questions on our plans to move there. Questions such as how many people we know in NZ, how do we plan to get a job there, how much money we have to start off and so forth. We have heard of cases of decline or just offered a Work to Residence (WTR), which was a condition whereby the immigration would grant a temporary work visa which you have to get a job within a stipulated time failing which you have to leave the country. At that time the applicants were generally offered 6 months to get a job and we were worried if we were given that similar condition of 6 months which is too short especially when we are settling into a new environment. We had to thank our lucky stars that we need not need to endure such agony!!

Our road to migration

2010-11-16T03:35:00.000-08:00

We started the process of migration in year 2004. We had applied to migrate to New Zealand. The process of application until approval took about a year. This process was very stressful experience both mentally and physically. It takes great determination, stamina and most importantly courage especially when we have never been to that country. We did our migration application all on our own and we had spent hours in this process as well as months of waiting for the outcome.

After being successfully granted our residency to New Zealand we moved there and stayed for about 3 1/2 years before moving on to Australia which is where I am now. In this blog I would try to recall our migration experience from time when we applied to New Zealand as well as our current application for residency in Australia.

In preparation for our move we had gathered information about New Zealand, the life style, its economy, job prospect, schooling, housing, transportation and so on. I have also started to gather information on Australia. which I shall put in my subsequent postings of my blog.

For those who are successful in getting their residency and is at the planning stage of relocation the following might be helpful, though not exhaustive. It also depends on individuals for example are you single or a family with children etc.

Among the things to consider before you migrate would be :

Place to settle for example city or town,
Job prospects if you have not yet secured a job before migrating,
To ship over or to start from scratch,
To migrate together as a family or either of the partner goes first if you are married,
How much money you need to start off in a new country,
Schooling if you have children
Your property in your country - to sell off or to rent it out should you have already own a house.
Who is to follow up with your correspondences and other outstanding matters when you leave the country.

This list is not exhaustive and would depend on individual circumstances.

I would also put down our residency application process. However it is important to check the latest immigration rules from the immirration website and not just relying on my blog. There are also many ways to migrate and I am not a specialist in this area. Do consult an immigration consultant if there is a need.