Source: https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-drawback...ng-to-Australia

Oliver Jader Contreras, Food Technologist

Updated Apr 27, 2013 · Upvoted by Peter Baskerville, Australian citizen. Lived here for over 50 years.

Having just migrated to Australia (from the Philippines) in 2011, there's not much to say. And it actually depends on your attitude upon coming in AU. But still you're asking. Here are my observations:

1) Adaptation to a simpler lifestyle
•There is no need to be boastful and prove anything to anyone.
•There is little purpose of having fancy clothes nor jewelry, as you wouldn't be deemed any less if you haven't got them.
•No need for flashy cars as they're just a means to get you from point A to point B. Australians hold on to their cars very long - 10 yrs against the Americans' 4yrs.
•Pleasures of a vacation means a week at the beach, fishing, picnics and barbies (barbecues); not a shopping holiday in Hongkong.
2) Expensive
•Generally, most items - food, branded clothing, appliances, houses and cars are very dear here. Compared to US: food is 2x as much, clothes x2-3, computers/electronics +10-20% more, cheapest massage at $70, cheapest subway 6" at $5, and decent townhouses are $500k 3km from the Brisbane CBD.
•Expensive for locals to take local vacations, given our strong currency. It's cheaper to go overseas to Fiji, Bali, Vanuatu, or even Hawaii than for Aussies to explore the islands of the Great Barrier Reef.
3) Limited social network
•Migrants face the inevitable alienation from their extended families, their support network; able to communicate only through phones and the internet.
•If you have kids and they're of primary school age, somebody needs to attend to them. And its either of the couple stays at home or a hired nanny/ school-care. Either way its hard for both to pursue their careers at the same time.
•The core social unit here is still the family. The neighbors tend to keep to themselves, unless needed of course.
4) No Hollywood, no CNN, few reality shows. There are Brit & European movies though, BBC, and a slew of cooking shows on prime time.

5) AU needs skilled workers, but only for specific jobs and industries (eg mining, banking/finance, health care). If you don't have skills in these industries, it is usually the case that you have to
•restart your career
•assess your transferable skills and apply it to another career.
•study and shift to another skill set
•move back a few notches in your career just to get in the market.
AU companies it seems, from my experience - wouldn't recognize job experiences held in countries that are not at par with the 'first-world'.

6) Aussies (compared to the west) are still a bit more conservative in more ways than one.

7). You feel FAR from everything
•You cant go cross country like Europe, as AU is girded by the sea and the nearest countries are thousands of km's away. NZ is 3hrs away as with Bali, HK is 8hrs, LA is 15hrs away.
•AU cities are spaced so far apart that you need to drive the whole day to get to the next city.
•If you don't have much resources, it may take a while before you save up for the big holiday back to your home country.

8) AU is Egalitarian (or at least we think we are) - either plus or minus
•If you're the master and the commander from where you come from, then be prepared to lose some pride. No maids, cooks and personal drivers. You need to clean up after your mess, and cook for yourself as everyone's on equal footing with everybody ('having a fair go').
•No socio-economic strata (hardly). If you plan to build a purely capitalist venture here, it may not work as there isn't much friction or loopholes in the markets to profit from or exploit, apart from the small population - 22M in 2012. If you're American, prepare to meet with quite a few anti-American sentiments around here.

9) Aussie-speak and accent
•Hard to understand. But only for the first couple of months. Even if you're very conversant already in English; and sometimes I get to lip-read people when they speak. This is British English, they even have a specific Aussie dictionary, so there's no Webster's here.

Please don't let these 'excuses' get in the way though of thoughts of coming here. All migration issues need full thought and concentration. One should have a fair amount of issues to contend with, as with all other countries they may consider.

It's hard to list these up and maybe you'd know well already the pluses of going here.

Australia has been a good country to me and my family in more ways than one. And it is actually difficult to find any real problem of note. I think the above points are few and minor compared to the many advantages of coming here, of which I could list up at least a thousand;-)

Siddhartha Majumdar, Organised PR (Permanent Resident VISA) without any agent.


It’s the ‘BORING HEAVEN’ instead of ‘EXCITING HELL”. Reference to Christian Bergland's answer to What is the dark side of living in South Korea?

Understand this: Australia does not have a giant industrial base and the twenty-three million inhabitants can literally ‘live off the land’ and yet have an exceptionally high standard of living.

One simple way of visualizing our economy is you simply dig the ground, get the minerals, export them and re-distribute part of the wealth to everyone. Obviously you only need certain level of skills to do that. It’s the re-distribution of wealth part that gives us the high quality of life.

If you are a skilled worker and your sole objective in life is to do world class research and development, designing great algorithms, finding the solution to worlds problems, etc. you will be disappointed.

If you are a skilled worker, looking for a great life, then Australia will offer you an exceptionally high quality of life.

Anonymous

Written Sep 3, 2014

I lived in Sydney and am moving back there next year. I've lived on 4 continents in a variety of first and third world countries. Compared to other large first world cities, in decreasing order of annoying:
•Really far from everything. Family trip? 20-30h flights with stopover, "perfect" 12 hour jet lag. Want to see another country? Well, New Zealand is a few hours, everything else is long haul. I live in Singapore and I travel monthly or bi-monthly. This in Sydney will cost a bit. Perth is better connected to Asia.
•Real estate is through the roof at the moment. Want a one bedroom relatively close to things? Here goes half a million dollars. Half of Asia is buying there, the other half is buying Australian commodities and the miners are happy spenders. OK, it's better than London. On the upside, you get your money's worth with some of the best views in the world, decent construction and great weather.
•Cost of living is higher, and choice more restrained. This is in part due to distance, in part due to the commodities-driven bubble that has driven purchasing power (and the AUD) through the roof, in part because brands consciously set prices 50% higher than anywhere else in the world. I'm always amazed when I find the same bottle of Australian wine to be cheaper abroad.
•The sun burns you harder than anywhere else. I've had my share of the tropics but this is something else. I like the outdoors and learnt quickly to use sunscreen. Something to do with a hole in the ozone layer.
•Sydney public transport sucks. It does eventually get you from A to B but you better enjoy walking and waiting (in that famous sun). Thankfully cars aren't as overpriced as in Singapore. I think the sprawling suburbia is a feature (I like to have my little plot of land and community) but it does mean a lot of driving around. I might be a little spoiled, I'm used to trains every minute or two...

•Spiders. Everywhere. Orb weavers usually (particularly on the North Shore), but I had something rat-sized, grey and 8-legged run on top of my shoe once and it was a bit of a shock. Apparently some of them can kill you, haven't seen those yet although I killed something black and shiny inside a house once which might have been a male funnel web. There's also the sharks, snakes and so on but the only snakes I ever saw were in the bush, and statistics says sharks aren't a problem. Drunk Aussies are the animal you have to watch out for
•The job market sucks (for employees). It's conservative, slow, and badly paid relative to other world class cities. The truth is, as a foreigner, you're one of thousands who want to move there, and there's relatively few companies in Australia compared to Singapore, Hong Kong or New York.
•Occasional, casual racism. My partner isn't white, so when bogans (or my landlady) started talking about "bloody [insert minority] taking over" it was never a pleasant moment. I've also heard of worse incidents. This being said Aussies respect a hard worker who wants an honest chance in life and as with anywhere else the nuts are in the minority. That wonderful culture is in part why I'm moving back.
•The rather tough immigration policy makes it hard/expensive to sponsor employees particularly from third world countries. This may cause my company to start a Singapore office for those less likely to get approved or who need to get snatched off the job market quickly. This applies to a lesser extent to the rest of regulation.
•I really thought roos would let me pet them. Maybe I need to get further from the city. Petted quokkas though.
It's a really nice place to live. Much recommended.

Anonymous

Written Dec 30

1.The process to get a visa is very long, complicated (for the Permanent Resident) and expensive, not to mention that migration changes their rules all the time.
2.Is Far From Everything. This not only means that you are away many hours from Europe, America or Asia, but also means that here have the islander mentality, not so open as they say (sometimes very conservative) and sometimes prefer to embrace negation (like the ostriches) than to see real bad things to find a solution.
3.Is Very Expensive. You have to bring here A LOT of money just only to survive. Most of the things here are imported from China (and everywhere else) because producing things is extremely expensive. Maybe is why a lot of jobs have off-shored to Asia (Malaysia, Philippines, etc) and the manufacturing industry is dying.
4.Is Over-regulated. This is one of the most bureaucratic countries, that puts a lot of absurd and dense rules for doing anything. Compared with other countries, opening and maintaining a business is a nightmare.
5.Australia has stopped growing and is nearly a recession. Everyone sees it but no one says nothing. Or if they say something they do it very quiet.
6.The “real” unemployment and sub-employment, not the 6–7% reported by the ABS, is growing due to high AUD and over-regulation. A lot of Aussies struggle to find a job and live of the government, because the government is unable to stop the companies here to quietly reduce staff and/or sending jobs overseas.
7.The job offer is less than the actual volume of people looking for job. So the recruiters can be slow, close minded, short sighting, and racist, because they are looking for the “perfect candidate” and there is plenty of people willing to do whatever (stupid) things to get it. So be very conservative about getting a job here fast and easy. It´s not.

I think that is most of it. I wouldn´t be suprised if anybody here says the typical ozzie phrase: “You can leave Australia anytime, mate!”…Ha,ha…

This post has been edited by dangerminimouse: Jan 5 2017, 01:59 PM

to be frank... its all comparing first world countries...

i do agree that its away from everything... but the daily expenses, its generally the same as KL... i eat all organic in KL, hardly can find any organic shops in Melbourne... but raw food price wise, its pretty much the same with KL... minus the variety of fishes i get though... and free range eggs and milk are dirt cheap in Australia

clothing it depends, i noticed that expensive clothes (Northface) are cheaper in Melbourne where cheaper clothes (Uniqlo, H&M) are more expensive... when i say more expensive, i meant after converting to MYR... the Northface jacket that i bought for AUD400 costs a farking RM1899 at the Gardens

job depends... if you know people, you are ahead of the game, that's all i can say...

but yeah, luxuries are rare here... hardly see any nice watches on the streets except on Asians and people in Crown

i haven't taken public transportation for quite a while and i think Melbourne is doing a pretty good job so far

This post has been edited by kenji1903: Jan 6 2017, 06:12 AM

Dont forget average salary for fresh grad is AUD35k per year before tax vs RM36k... a freshie would have to be spending 1/2 month of his salary on that jacket.

there you go

But i think Europe is still cheaper when i comes to food and clothing... bought a Tommy windbreaker for EUR200... older design costs RM1700+ at 1U
coffee is on average EUR2... in Melbourne, its around AUD3.5-AUD4.5

Pre GST, my rental in Melbourne was AUD 1,200 per month for a decent 5 room house with 2 garage at Sydney Road. Nowadays, it bloomed to AUD 5,000 per month.

No surprise prices in Australia has shot up. Its not actually cheap to live there.

Also, expect the NZ Lord of the ring type lifestyle. Its going to be laid back, and one has to retrain oneself to be acclimate to weird odd jobs rather than the white collar ones that we experience here.

Australia is not manufacturing based, its more focus on service industry. They also would disregard your Asian experience, so expect to be working at the lowest level like restarting all over again.

frankly i'd say in Melbourne, service industry is top notch

single income will struggle in Melbourne but its not impossible like in KL

that depends on which industry... but anyway, migration is starting all over anyway...

So the bad is all good. A heaven to third world.

Why are Australians killing themselves in paradise?

What is single income?

Trust me, it is a struggle. Some of my friends in Melbourne, are struggling for the sake of their children education. They think its worth it.

sole breadwinner

its a struggle regardless where you are... just that PRs/citizens are paying less compared to foreign students
plus with the depreciating MYR, that's definitely gonna fakap your children's education savings if you stay back

This post has been edited by kenji1903: Jan 6 2017, 10:17 AM

So low? More like AUD 50k.

The rental part is true, but essentially it's easily paid for IF you have a fulltime job, with plenty left over.

It really depends on what type of skills you have, coming from an accounting background I was able to find a job without much of an effort really. The start of the year seems to be prime time for job hunting as I've been contacted on linked in by at least 3 recruiters this week.

Once again it depends on what type of Asian experience you have. If you have experience in large MNCs or big 4/mid tier audit firms they recognize this experience just fine.

Tax very high wor. Still can survive?

How old r you?

Maybe they prefer young lad not 30 year old uncle like me. I got friends 30 yo so hard to find job there.

Recently I heard potential budget cuts for the health, education benefits in AUstralia. Actually their AAA status is in danger of downgrade due to burgeoning budget deficit.

Well I'm taxed at approximately 20% + another 9.5% of superannuation (basically EPF but you can choose your own superannuation fund ). What I have leftover is basically what I earned in Malaysia but without converting. But yeah, misunderstood your question a little, I'm not going to be able to service a 5000 dollar a month rental easily. But neither do I need a 5 bedroom house.

I'm close to 30 as well and age is not a factor. If you suspect they don't want you due to age you can report them to fair work Australia.

You need to be able to speak proper English though. If your accent is super strong, think mainland India.. it may be a bit hard to find a job as the interviewers won't be able to understand you.

I have to agree that going back to Malaysia is a bit of a hassle (8 hr flight), but the flight tickets are like AUD 179 from Melbourne to KL. NZ is much nearer to visit and some domestic flights are bloody cheap. I recently went to the gold coast for 50 bucks on tiger air. On the flipside, getting to places like HK, China, Japan, Korea is bloody annoying and time consuming.

However, one of the most important aspects of living here (IMO), is that it is safer than Malaysia. I can go running at 10.30 - 11 pm and not need to worry about my safety. There are some suburbs to avoid but generally it's very safe. I wouldn't ever dream of doing that where I used to stay in KL.

This post has been edited by Rand: Jan 6 2017, 11:11 AM

every now and then there are hear says... i'd focus on earning money rather on those news...

fresh food are cheap, depends on how you shop,
i only shop on weekly catalogues from coles/woolie/aldi and local market/grocers, stock them up when they're often on half price specials.

some usual prices on daily items as below,
broccoli - $1.99/kg
apples - $2.50/kg
orange - $1.50/kg
rockmelon - $0.99ea
2L fresh milk - $2.80
1L uht milk - $0.90
12 caged eggs 700g - $2.80

seasonal specials during cheapest moment,
3 avocados - $1
500g strawberries - $2.50

merlo coffee - happy hour $2/cup

cars are cheap but not parking in inner city/cbd unless workplace provides staff parking
toyota 86 only $35k driveaway here, while costing RM250k from umw

public transport not cheap either but very convenient yet still cheaper than daily paid parking.
25km radius from city by public transport costs $3.90ea way on peak hrs.

all above are based on brisbane.

$35k+-pa is min. wage for full-time adult even without any qualifications

fresh grad are higher than that and varies between industries/fields.

heck even cashier at petrol station get paid $28/hr for night shift and doubles on public holidays

au property is a joke at the moment, i'd say it has nearly peaked and one should expect the bubble to burst if timing is right for another gfc.
and it'll be ugly.

median house prices in sydney now over 1mil , with melbourne trailing up.
even the local gen-y/x can only dream of owning a house nowhere near inner-city

high-rise residentials are still growing like mushrooms with tower cranes everywhere, even though the market has cooled down and overseas buyers (china) have been clamped down on getting any loans approved resulting in oversupply of apartment units.

Brisbane's a lot cheaper then...

i'm eating good in Malaysia and i have the same expectation for Aussie...
A2 1L milk - $2.50 at IGA
free range 800gm eggs - $5 at Coles
a slice of ocean trout, a slice of cod, a slice of perch - $18 at Eastland
250gm coffee beans - $16 at seven seas
6 apples (large), 3 oranges, 4 lemons - $15 at Eastland
i'm paying $140 for 30 days zone 1 + zone 2 myKi