Australians are really into home improvement and renovation. A lot of people actually work as renovator and make a lot of money out of it. They basically get an old place, renovate, resale and can get like 100k+ over few months. So you can consider to be a freelance PM if you do not want to or can't get a permanent role in developer firm.

However, housing market is going down and going slow. Australia is one of the most expensive country in the world. I am staying in Sydney and Sydney is number 4 or number 5 most expensive city in the world. The issue here is the same as in Malaysia, inflation is high and salary increment doesn't really keep up. Unless you are able to earn AUD spend in MYR, you won't be saving money and go back to Malaysia and retire early.

Migration, be it city to city or from country to country is a choice of life style. I would never encourage anyone to do it if your only/major concern is money. Again, I am in Sydney, so there is probably nothing different to KL. You get mamak till 2am (only in weekend though). Jusco/Giant equivalent supermarket opens till 12 midnight everyday, Kmart opens 24 hours ... and yes you get your normal kl nightlife in the city. Plus, there are as many asians in Sydney as in kl, though there are many koreans and chinese.

You'll get about $4,350 after tax. $2100 per month is definitely enough for you to survive. The steepest cost you should expect are to save up the deposit for house, which you already have it, and the initial cost to get all furniture. If you are good on both front, I don't think you should worry much. At least not until your girl reach schooling age and you plan to send her to private school (which against what most Malaysian would believe, is almost a necessity at some point for most parents here) , then you will be doomed.

1) Like? It really depends on individual, if you can succeed in Australia, you can be successful in Malaysia too. I do not agree with this.
2) What do you expect the government to treat you? They tax you more in Australia hence more benefits. Everything still comes from the tax payer money anyway.
3) It really depends. Most of the cases, yes, but there are many roles that require 24/7 standby and workload that needs to overflow to weekend. Both Malaysia and Australia have roles that only need you to be present and do very little stuff and relax. Point is, if you are in a role that is really stressful in Malaysia and you move to Australia to look for a job that is almost identical, it might be easier, but you shouldn't expect big changes.
4) Higher is a wrong word. The education and environment are not ideal as most of you would think. Think of US and UK, and you shouldn't expect Australia to be much better then those two countries. Which is why I said in my previous post, private education is a necessity for most parents nowadays. And mind you, even for primary education, it starts at 17k per annum ++ of fees.
5) Getting a place to stay will cost you the most here. If you don't have one, you will still struggle. My opinion is, you should never ever migrate to Australia because of money. If you are planning for the same lifestyle you had back in Malaysia and you didn't save in Malaysia, you wouldn't save here in Autsralia too.
6) You got a really wrong perception on this. This is not just an Australian problem, but a democracy problem. Having short term government that changes every other term are the culprit of THINGS NEVER GET DONE. A short and simple example in Sydney. Talks had been going since 20 years ago about having a second airport, about having train services to north west region, building/expanding freeways in hills district and western suburbs. Millions have been spent on consultation to make up plans to have it scrapped when a new government comes into power. In the end, its the people that struggles with wasted tax money, traffic congestion and long traveling time. Just have a look at the wiki below on one of the example mentioned.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_West_railway_line,_Sydney

I'm staying in Sydney. Been here 6 years in total. Worked in Malaysia for 5 years in between. That good enough for you?

A lot of people sees overseas as a greener pasture and that is not true. This is human nature and it is the same for every country, even people here that kept b****ing and looking to move. But of course, there are less, as compared to European and NZ'der that wants to move to Australia for example. If you are saying people in Malaysia are struggling, put them in these other countries, it is as bad if not worse.

Malaysia is comparable to a lot of countries in many ways, Malaysia do have a lot of potential that yes, had been abused by the government. I do not think people should think about Australia as an absolute better place so that you want to move over no matter what.

And my point is? If you can succeed in Australia, you could do it in Malaysia too. Its your attitude in life that make you successful, not whether you are in Malaysia or Australia. To me, so many things that many people says to de-minimis Malaysia is very untrue.

Maybe if you go to Perth, the story is very different from what I mentioned. But I would think you should compare KL to Sydney if you want an apple to apple comparison. I've lived in both city and neither are much better then the other.

Hypothetically, if Sydney have the population density of KL and everything else is the same, then I would think Sydney is a much better place. Cause with that, the infrastructure in Sydney can and will be greatly improved. However, as it stands, the house price is so expensive even if you have to live 30 mins to 1 hour away that it is really unreasonable.

Another thing you should probably know is that you need to have different expectation here. It is not uncommon for people here to stay in Blue Mountains or Central Coast and travel to city or North City to work everyday. That's like Genting-KL or Melaka-KL kinda distance 3-4hours traveling everyday. To many Sydneysiders, this is the only way they can afford a house with big yard and gardens.

And mind you, Sydney is still using heavy rail network, so traveling in train is not like in Japan or Euro that type of speed.

A lot of people don't mind it, I probably won't mind either in a few years down the track when everything in my life is stable. So I'm not complaining here, its more of an FYI.

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Added on December 19, 2011, 7:16 pmYou are offered the position because you did applied to it in the first place. So I am pretty sure you have already weighted your pros and cons before. So unless some drastic changes happened in between, I would say to you to just come and give it a go. Moving to Australia is hard, moving back isn't. Try it out for a year and who knows what life brings you. Don't say no just because the initial offer is low as it is just temporary, things will always get better.



This post has been edited by divine061: Dec 19 2011, 07:16 PM

The thing I notice is, the people that stereotype Asians, are just Asians themselves. I've seen very little places in Malaysia that need you to stay in office if there is nothing to do. Are there are a lot of work in Australia that needs to do unpaid overtime too...

Don't expect working environment will change to be better just because its in Australia. Its really down to individuals and down to the company that you are working in.

Now I am curious ... Your brother in-law is cheating on your sister or getting a second wife? (no offense )

oo, stupid me

Watch the news. Westpac cut job, was it 600? And ANZ let go of 1000? (don't really recall which two banks, but I am pretty sure about the number). Both just happened within last few months ... HSBC is cutting people worldwide. All big 4s are crying about losses if interest rate is cut ... So unless you are the CEO who are still taking in millions of bonuses each year, tell me if it will be easy?

1) Depending on which engineering

2) Depending on which engineering. 100k gross is possible, but unlikely for new immigrant

3) Just google it

4) single bedroom can be between 350 to 500 per week, just go www.domain.com.au
Food court is less then $10, but only city's food court open in the night. Eating out on take away food is about $10 per person. Dining out can be $20 ~ $40 per person. You can find cheaper food in city, western and eastern suburbs. I'm staying in the north and dining out is more expensive.

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Added on March 4, 2012, 9:57 amThe trend everywhere is to outsource especially in Australia where the currency is strong. It is not impossible to look for a job, but it will be much harder.

This post has been edited by divine061: Mar 4 2012, 09:57 AM

You got a PR? I filled a few position on the eastern front earlier during the year. There might be a vacancy in Melbourne by the end of the year if things goes well, if not early next year. PM me if you are interested. Personally I'm into security but the role can be either network or security.

Just one comment on girl-next-door's post. About your residential status, you MUST include that in your resume. Her situation might be different because she applied as a graduate (Am I right?).

But for experienced people, you can't hide it when you include your past experience and you include a 'Sdn Bhd' or 'Pte Ltd' in your resume. The first thing I ask when I see foreigners resume is the residential status, and I only do that because I do not have enough good resume to process. If there are competition, I would imagine the employer wouldn't bother to call you up.


Oh maybe a second comment. Accent is not that important for Sydney and probably Melbourne too. There are too many foreigners here, they are used to it and the HR is probably not a local either.

And P/S British are considered the cheaper version of local Australian. If you have to compete with them and asking for a local pay, you will definitely loss out.

If your reason for choosing Perth is mining then it shouldn't be too hard for you to land a high pay job provided that you are willing to do FIFO. And don't ask me what is that, google it.

But you won't be spending a lot of time with your family though, and that will probably defeat the purpose of you moving to OZ in the first place. But then again, QS might not need to spend too much time on site, but I don't know cause that is not my field.

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Added on December 6, 2012, 7:57 amIT ? Operations? Front end? Either one of it, good luck. New round of redundancy packages handed out each year. I'm in the process of encouraging my wife to volunteer for redundancy next year and do some small business instead.


This post has been edited by divine061: Dec 6 2012, 07:57 AM

Yea, FIFO for new migrate for a couple of years and it will be a lot easier to get some other job. I think a lot of people are doing that while earning a lot of money. For construction, I think you'll need to know the market as a QS right? Like housing for example, weatherboard house, using wood as the main partitions of the buildings and lots of gyprock rather then brick is very common here. But the story is probably different in Malaysia.

Or maybe some opportunities would be in preparing tax depreciation schedules, but then again, you'll need a lot more local market knowledge and experience to know the material and price + historical prices. Is that right?

Apartments in Melbourne are saturated, so if you wants to go into project building / developer, I think Sydney is a better choice. As far as I read, Sydney is probably the only city that is under supplied right now (in terms of dwellings for residential), so you might want to consider that.

I'm surfing a lot in somersoft and homeone forum recently. There should be some thread on project home or developers that might be useful to you.

Sounds great, having a friend in the same industries passing you the knowledge are good stuff Good to know that you already knew the options available and I am not pointing to the wrong direction either . If you move to Sydney I, I can be one of your first client, that is assuming I can convert my current place to an investment property within this two years ...

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Added on December 6, 2012, 11:34 amAnd yea, the other the depreciation schedule is a good business because of negative gearing, which is again unique to Australia and one of the reasons Australian experience does matter in this case.

This post has been edited by divine061: Dec 6 2012, 11:34 AM

come Sydney. Perth and Sydney are totally two different country, if you like life in KL then you should feel the same in Sydney.

And replying to this:
- I really don't know what will happen to Malaysia in the next 5-10 years...

It is the same in Australia. Australia is a very backward country and just dependent on mining and agriculture. That could end in the very near future and when it ends, Australia are totally not prepared for it. It does not have the infrastructure, people or technology at all. Obvious way to put it, any people looking for a little technology innovations would seek opportunities in US, in the financial sector, people are moving to uk and asia.

So I've always said the same thing. Don't come to Australia for career or the money, you can possibly be better off in Malaysia. Come for the lifestyle and country, as that is the only thing you can't find in Malaysia.

I don't know why so many Malaysians like Melbourne. Just come Sydney, the weather here is great and a lot more stuff to do here.

As for a job, you won't know if you don't try. It is hard but not impossible. There are people that can get a job straight away and some takes longer. But if he is 3 years jobless, that is not an issue with the job market but down to the person.

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Added on January 3, 2013, 11:37 amAnyway, a lot of job opening are direct to employer, not through agency. You just need to find it and it isn't exactly hard to find.

This post has been edited by divine061: Jan 3 2013, 11:37 AM

exactly what I meant. Not much different from KL, cause the post are complaining that Melbourne is too quiet, so why not try Sydney?

People here are lazy. They would try to look for the easy solution where they will look into the experience and criteria that ticks their box. So if you have exact same skill set, then it will be very easy. But that is really hard for anyone, so you need good written and communication skill to convince them match the skills one to one.

Being Malaysian, I think a lot will fail to do that and someone else who have less skill would crawl ahead of you, but the HR or recruiter doesn't understand that.

Cause you can say the same thing about half of the world.