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since this topic is up, i've got a scenario which i need help with. please hear me out?

my bf and i are discussing about migrating to australia. both of us find that if we are going to start a family, might as well go to a better place with better living standard, healthcare and such. we all know how malaysia is in certain ways. i'm not saying it's really bad but what we want and deserve, malaysia couldn't give... or should i say, aussie is better.

anyway, we aren't sure how hard is it to apply and how much it cost. the last time we checked, it cost about AUD2250 (non-refundable). should we hire an agent? and how much would that be?

his grandparents and uncles are there, citizens, so this might be a plus point, plus he is an engineer although with only 1+ year experience. what are the chances of him getting a PR? for me, should i apply with him as a spouse? or get married only AFTER he has gotten his visa?

any feedback appreciated!

@Fujihime

where are you guys situated at this moment and what kind of engineer is your bf? if you are gona submit an offshore application you should best start now as it will probably take years to get the PR application approved. not to pour cold water, even the graduates who are onshore are waiting more than a year for their PR application to be approved and they are also working now... so if you are serious in getting it try applying it now. if you are onshore, agent is a waste of money coz they basically do the same things you have to do in regards to documentation and stuffs and follow up. its more convenient but not really applicable unless you are in some superbly difficult situation. Agents usually will charge 100% of the cost of the application fees ( do not quote me on this am merely guessing due to agent handlers in sydney)

im not too sure the chances of your bf getting the visa, plus points having relatives in australia but if the job field is not in the list for the required points, he can't apply under certain subclass. Im no pro in the migration stuffs but you can read probably read up in the DIMIA website. There are a point system whereby if you do not meet the required points, there are no chance at all in getting the visa under certain subclasses. if you are an offshore or onshore applicant that may provide more info to look into. dont think you can apply under him as a spouse coz if you are not married its de facto.... in the de facto stage if he get his visa and you tumpang, you guys ahave to prove a lot of stuffs that you are staying together, sharing a bank account, utilities, friends to be witnesses etc etc if you are onshore application but offshore no idea how it works

dont think i helped much, but probably seek advice from a migration agent... they may charge you a consulting fee then you can choose to proceed or not to proceed with the application

Before I proceed, if you're staying in KL, you can visit this site (http://www.prforaustralia.com/). They provide free consultation. Office is located near Pavillion. soliciting the services of an agent will give you less headache however it's not impossible if you want to apply for PR yourself.

With regards to migration only, as you will come to know, Australia is having major changes to migration policy since February 2010. There will be no more of the old critical skill shortage list, they will be replaced by a new skills list which will determine who will get PR or not. The previous list was very loosely based and had a lot of loopholes. But with this new list, it will tighten the job scope a lot more. It will affect both offshore and onshore applicants. Some 20,000 applicants who has applied since 2007 will be also be rejected.
Not to demotivate you, but you should wait until June 2010 and see whether this new list will apply to you.
However, saying that though, if that doesn't work out, you can also chose to migrate with the option of having family there.

in australian law, you don't need to be legally married to be considered his partner. however, i reckon it's better that you get legally married before applying for PR. but it still doesn't matter if you do it after or before.

Now the next question is mine actually. Before I proceed, please don't turn this thread into Malaysia vs Australia but I just hope to get some different views on this. You were talking about Oz is better in giving what you want and deserve? I am just wondering what is Malaysia lacking that you can't get it here?
Political stability?
Employment opportunity?
Salary?
Entertainment?

My sister is looking to apply for a job in Aussie, anyone got any pointers?

This post has been edited by audreyreiko: Mar 25 2010, 03:56 PM

thanks witchx for the reply!

my bf is an electronics engineer. i read that they need engineers but i'm not sure which ones. we are currently in malaysia and plan to apply here. the part about me tumpang to apply with him is quite the challenge. so we'll prolly get an agent to help us. but thanks for the input, appreciate that!

remeron, i'll check out the agent that you recommended, thanks!
maybe i might sound harsh when i say about the deserving part haha! hmm i do like alot of things that malaysia offer, the food, night life etc. but other than that, standard of living, my major concern is unfulfilling. lets say a freshie gets a starting pay of RM2k, it wont get u much in m'sia. for aus, a freshie gets AUD2k (with tax minus off) can afford much more. a reputable car there only cost about AUD20-30k but dollar-to-dollar we can only get a kancil or kenari maybe? raw materials such as food are much more affordable there as well although i can't say the same as eating out. but after even things out, i still prefer the living in aus.

other than that, working ethics. australians work 8hrs and they can go home tepat2. for us, the culture is different. going home on time can sometimes means u r being lazy @_@ i mean this might not happen in all companies la but you get what i mean. i wan to work for what i'm paid, something like that.

when i have kids in future, i wan equality in schooling too. i'm offended with the quota thingie. this goes the same with buying a house. it's unfair that some ppl have to pay more. there's no such inequality in aussie.

these are the things that i can see so far. there might be other aussie stuff that i missed out that i might need to consider as well. for one, i'm quite uneasy about the suburb areas being too quiet and dark after 7pm. it seems too 'dead'. but so far, from the perspective of my bf's relatives living there, they lead happier lives compare to when they are here.

That may be true for blue collared or hourly-waged workers, but I assure you no professional works those hours in Australia. In fact, it is more than common to do 12 hours a day, plus weekends.

hi,

just want to check with you all. If I got an Australia visa under Employer Sponsored Workers type, which subclass I will fall into? the reason why I'm asking this, because I surf through Department of Immigration Australia website, I found out that there are two major types of Visa. one is permanent & the other is temporary. And still there are many Visa sub-types under those two categories which is called as Subclass. So, can someone brief me about this complex things.

Thanks

@fujihime - I think you only are looking at the bright side of things in regards to Australia lifestyle and the bad sides of Malaysian lifestyle. No doubt I have to agree with you in regards to the automotive pricing...
In regards to the working hours, it is not 100% true you leave at 5pm you can choose to do so, but at the end of the day you have to finish your job... it isn't fair that we get the same pay, we get the same workload, we both work 8 hours, myself finishing 100% of the workload and you only finish 60%... where's fairness and equality in that? if you have to stay back and finish to catch up you gota do it...

If you were gona stay in Australia long term and intend to buy a house, its way way way more expensive not to mention interests on loan. To help you understand better, visit www.domain.com.au or www.realestate.com.au and browse around the suburbs you may wanna live in and check on the pricing... Education level maybe good in Australia but I dare say that many graduates from local college / unis are more successful than those that has studied overseas or have education in Australia. A lot of kids brought up by the Aussie way of life are not better off than those that are brought up in Malaysia. Racism do exist in Malaysia but I feel its worse off in Australia especially during school times. Certain kids have little or no respect to their parents.. mostly due to upbringing and peers and the laws surrounding the minors and its very difficult to discipline your child ( no i do not have concrete evidence but based on my observation and only applies to certain and not all).

At the end of the day, its still up to you on how you can adapt to your lifestyle and where you chose to live in. My thought is that you look at pros and cons of both countries to be assessed before making a final decision. But getting a PR in australia and if you dont feel you like it in the first couple of years and decide to move back to malaysia thats still okay but once get citizenship it will be a bit difficult. I am in no way here trying to deter you from making your decision to move to australia

@ RBR - I've gota agree with your statement there.. There are many asian investors that has entered australia and kinda change how the working culture are around

how come housing become more expensive, i see the price of detached house mostly 300k-500k within 20km from city like brisbane?

Yeah, those options are much lesser nowadays, they do suffer from the property being "fried". For now, what we can see is for a suburb house, ~550k AUD. A former classmate of mine previously in QUT wants to find a place a Toowomba (near the airport one, I hope the spelling is still correct) and the cheapest he can find is 420k, and that is a 95% wooden made house.

He ends up buying a condo there for ~350k.

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Added on March 26, 2010, 4:54 pmHi EmoO,

I stayed in Brisbane, Australia for 2 years. Hopefully my advice is still helpful And this is just my opinion. If I offended anyone / make someone unhappy, I am sorry.

Casual Worker - What is your definition of casual worker? You mean like working as waitress, work in a pub, shopkeep etc these kind of things? Unfortunately, due to recent migration law change during the recession, these kind of work are basically only open for Aussies only. Unless you are onshore now with a work permit, you have less than 5% chance to be able to get such "casual" job.

Monetary gain - Hmm, Let say you get AUD15 (Nando's there one hour is AUD16.50), so work for 8 hours a day, you will get AUD120 per day. So, work 6 days a week and a month you will get ~AUD2900. That's about RM8700. A lot right? Wait a minute, out of AUD2900, you will need to pay their tax and superannuation, so per month, you will probably get less than AUD2.2k in cash. (Please note that last time I check, work without paying tax and super is a big offence). AUD2200 still need to use to buy food, daily goods, transportation fee and accommodation. Minus all those things out, the best case scenario, you will have ~AUD1500 left.

Relative Optimistic Calculation
Food - AUD10 per day
Daily Goods - AUD50 - 70 per week
Transportation - AUD3 - 5 per day
Accommodation - AUD100 - 120 per week

more rewarding then me working my butt off and getting demotivated over here in Malaysia. - Forgive me if you had answered this question before, but what job you are working now? One thing, never ever use monetary gain as an "excuse" for you to go work somewhere else. I seen people do it before and I gotta say, it doesn't end prettily.

Does anyone know how long does the Visa Application and costs are like? Honestly, the only VISA I see you are eligible for are:
1) Work Holiday Permit - not sure whether they still open this for application
2) Political asylum - Sort of impossible
3) Skilled Migrant - If you have a degree, then you are eligible for this, but you will need to get a professional job.

I've heard that its around RM1k+ plus it takes quite a while.. - the last time i checked, it is AUD480 for skill migrant scheme. It might change now. The rest, you can check DIMIA.

life over there... - If you are talking about casual job, then you will probably be same as the Indonesian, Bangladesh worker here (how people treat them is another issue). I am sorry, but that is the truth.

Life wise, I think your first choice will be Melbourne and Sydney? I can only say one thing, don't let the thing outside affect your decision. You need to see the inside to get the full picture.

Hope this helps.

This post has been edited by alex13: Mar 26 2010, 04:55 PM

the point is 500k still can get a detached house within reasonable distance of the city, try finding that in KL.

one thing i dont understand is why malaysia dont have developer build house with timber, we have so much forest and land to farm timber, we only export our timber to foreign country to build house. and most of the time they are the one that need brick house more than us with hurricane and bush fire. Malaysia seen to be overkill to build such solid house when we dont have much of natural disaster.

Probably timber can preserve heat better than brick. We don't use heating in the house at all. Look at Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia, I think the building materials used are pretty much the same.

It seems quite prominent that a lot of Malaysians who choose to migrate/work in developed countries usually do it for the same theme, ie. better more ?transparent politics elsewhere, fairness in education system, better income (if you start converting), cheaper car (dollar to dollar, when you do start converting), no prejudice when buying house and safer environment.

Actually, I myself have been thinking about this as I have been headhunted to work in Australia. And I am trying to figure out the same life altering questions people are asking. But some part of me keeps screaming, "What is so wrong about Malaysia?" or is my desire to move house and home is because of years of absorption of people around telling us "elsewhere" is better. And if you're Chinese, it happens even more often.

And I can say, at the end of the day, it's a White's Man Land. No matter how well you feel you are being treated, at the end of the day, you feel alone. However, saying that though, it all depends on your personality.

Its fallacious to think that the Asians have changed the working culture in Australia. My industry has few Asians but yet is renowned for its long hours. Ttry checking out any professional service companies (accounting, consultancy, law) in the US and UK. They've been doing long hours for ages.

You would be surprised to see how hard the locals work as well, and I'm not just talking about the hours, but also what you do during those hours. In an economy where wages is high, then workforce efficiency is important.

I agree. When I was working in Canada, going back on time was not frowned upon, but most locals work overtime anyway. Which will make you look bad if you go back right on the dot. And the commitment they put in during those working hours can be quite intimidating (at least to me). Their enthusiasm (fake or otherwise) can sometimes make you look bad if all you wanna do is just get by.

can always goto www.seek.com.au

but without PR, no one will bother to look at your CV, unless ur skills are needed there..

hey guys, I like to ask if anyone still be able to get the Working Holiday Visa to Australia? I'm planning to go next year if possible. I'm going to New Zealand Next month, planning to continue working in Australia after my working holiday visa in new zealand expires. Planning to apply for WHV for australia in New Zealand. Is it possible?

Anyone working in Melbourne now? I'm jobless. Lol

Hi Tom,

What qualifications you think you have to be eligible for Working Holiday Visa in Australia?