Life In Australia

A $37 billion tax cuts package is coming our way over the next few years. The changes in personal tax from July 2006 work out as follows:

The 30 per cent threshold will rise to $25,001.

The 42 per cent rate will be cut to 40 per cent and the threshold increased to $75,001.

The 47 per cent marginal tax rate will be cut to 45 per cent and the threshold increased to $150,001.

We also pay medicare but that’s much, much less than National Insurance in the UK.

Looking to the (my) future, superannuation for people aged 60 and over will be paid tax free from July 2007.

It looks as if Australia is proving to be the lucky country. Developing countries are hungry for metal ores – which Australia has in abundance. Australian exports are fetching record prices and the economy is very healthy. For years now we’ve been getting tax cuts. Compare this with the UK where Gordon Brown is scratching around for every possible way of increasing taxes.

Australia’s needs for skilled migrants are going to be all the more easily met. It used to be that Brits looking to emigrate to Australia traded off the fact they’d be financially worse off for more sunshine and a better lifestyle. It looks more and more as if Australia may soon offer a higher wage packet as well as the sunshine and better lifestyle. Finding more migrants for Australia is becoming easier every year.

We were talking with another British couple last night about homesickness.

Homesickness is something we’ve never really felt. We both feel it would be nice if we could see our relations in the UK more often, but it’s not something that’s tearing strongly at our emotions.

But last night we met – I’ll call her Jenny. Jenny and her husband have been in Brisbane for about a year now and Jenny still finds herself crying almost daily with the pain from homesickness.

It’s not as if she doesn’t like Brisbane. She says it’s a far, far better place to live than Manchester, where they emigrated from. Yet her close family isn’t here. Other familiar people and smells and scenes aren’t here. The effect seems to be tearing the poor woman apart.

If you haven’t been away from Britain for an extended period before, homesickness is something you should watch out for. It could wreck your whole emigration and, if it strikes you, I don’t think there’s much you can do about it.

I’m certain Jenny and her husband will be back in Manchester within 12 months. They’ll have a lower quality of life in many ways but it’ll be worth it to Jenny because she’ll have all those familiar things again that she can’t have in Brisbane.

Some Poms are happiest moving where there are plenty of other Poms. Others prefer getting away from other Brits completely. If you’re one of the latter, most places in Australia are not for you.

Poms are everywhere in Australia. In Brisbane alone there’s almost 100,000 people who have emigrated from Britain. Most of us have gone native so you’ll find it difficult to tell us from the Aussies – until we open our mouths .

You’ll find that the vast majority of Aussies are very welcoming and friendly to Poms, so don’t worry about opening your mouth and revealing your Pommieness.