I want to emigrate to Australia

[Jim Crafton]

and the crap football teams

¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! Personal 3D projects Just Say No to Web 2 Point Blow

[Lost User]

I spent a year in NZ as a kid (7 years old) in north island, arond Auckland and further north. It is a staggeringly beautiful country, and almost empty. We then drove across Auxtralia. NSW is OK, but lacks the tropical look of NZ. The rest is dry and hot.

Ian Shlasko wrote:

But it's just so far away! Isn't it like a 20+ hour flight from the US?

Even worse from the UK.

Morality is indistinguishable from social proscription

[Lost User]

Holland and FLanders is pretty much bilingial Dutch-English, but picking up a bit of Dutch helps, and its not that difficult. The main attraction with Europe is the cultural richness compared to Australia, and the cafe and restaurant lifestyle. Hollland, Belgium, Luxembourg are great places to be, Germany and France are close, as is the UK. Denmark not a million miles away. Still, you need a bit of language. I learnt French form one of those 'Learn French in a month' books and got a job in Aix, in France, for a US company. And many companies have a policy of using English, even ones not having an English/US component, such as German/French/Italian firms. They will use English beause ot gives them all an unfair advantage and they all know it well enough. Mind you the weather isnt any beter. If you want that then head for Sophia in the South of France. A lot of IT, mostly GSM based, and chip manufacture. If not Barcelona is supposed to be up and coming. Spanish is pretty easy to get to grips with.

Morality is indistinguishable from social proscription

[Lost User]

I found English a lot less used in Maastricht than in north Belgium though. In many pubs I had tro order in Dutch. Not that its difficult. Mag ik nog een dre and dirticher alsjeblieft. (Or at least somethign like that)! Anyway, the frogs language isnt so bad, its their bloody accent that the bugger. Especially down south!

Morality is indistinguishable from social proscription

[Lost User]

And Fris is supposed to be the closest language to English. DOnt know how close, havent been there, but its supposed to sound the same at times.

Morality is indistinguishable from social proscription

[Lost User]

In the south of france we have locusts, wasps the size of USB sticks, moths the size of small birds, vipers, scorpions, mosquitos, big green lizards that bite really badly, and bizare tiny things that leave a visible hole in your skin whcih then swells up to the size of a ping pong ball and leave your limb almost incapable of movement! But Australia is the worst for everything though it has to be said.

Morality is indistinguishable from social proscription

[Joe Woodbury]

I want to emigrate to Australia, but it looks like they aren't letting anyone in, especially folks like me in their late 40s. My CFO is from the Brisbane area and a friend of my wife now lives in Melbourne with her New Zealand born husband. I keep hoping either will come up with a solution.

[Mark_Wallace]

Grammatically, it's closer to English than Dutch, but the words are just as much gibberish.

I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!

[bryce]

Christian Graus wrote:

It's still the best bloody country to live in on the earth.

Bollocks bryce

MCAD --- To paraphrase Fred Dagg - the views expressed in this post are bloody good ones. --
Publitor, making Pubmed easy. http://www.sohocode.com/publitor

Our kids books :The Snot Goblin, and Book 2 - the Snotgoblin and Fluff

[Lost User]

Sydney is without doubt one of the worlds best cities in terms of lifestyle and opportunity. Come on down! If you want to email me privately I'll try and answer any questions

[Mycroft Holmes]

You must read/believe the advertising brochures. The beaches are actually beautiful, the down side is that the entire beach from is lined by 15 storey apartment buildings for holidaying families and their uncivilised children. I know this as my grand kids go there regularly. We have not been there in 20 years. I would be surprised if there is an IT industry there. One on the biggest differences I found between working in the UK and Oz is that the UK is decentralised to a larger degree. There is almost no IT work outside of the capital cities in each state. Oh and it's a bloody long way between cities, I once drove from Essex to Cornwall, took 5 hours. That is LESS than half the distance between Sydney and Brisbane.

Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH

[Mycroft Holmes]

Poms feel right at home in NZ, it is nice and wet and quite cozy. In the 90s there was some excellent software coming out of NZ.

Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH

[Mycroft Holmes]

I always used to be thankful that I did not grow up anywhere else, we just have spiders and snakes at least they don't frakkin eat you like bears and tigers and other beasties.

Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH

[Chris Maunder]

TheIdleProgrammer wrote:

Is Australia all it's cracked up to be?

Yes. Yes it is. :D (Christian lives in Tasmania which is a small island the rest of the mainland set adrift back in antiquity. The rest of Australia's IT industry is as healthy as anywhere else during these times)

cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project | Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP

[Chris Maunder]

Sydney is definitely a great city, almost as good as Melbourne ;)

cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project | Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP

[Chris Maunder]

A friend from Toronto just escapedmoved to Melbourne - she had very little trouble getting a work permit for 18 months.

cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project | Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP

[macu]

Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate. You should go, it's awesome, don't know about the software industry but if you move to Sydney (and don't live out west) you'll love it. That said it's not so cheap living near the coast but that depends how fussy you are about where you live. Sydney has everything and the only reason I came back was because it was too far from friends and family, if that's not an issue for you it really does have everything. Email me if you want any specific info, I've helped a couple of friends move out there and neither of them regret it.

[psmartt1]

I am a 4th generation Aussie. We moved up from Sydney to Brisbane 7 years ago. I would say the best place to get a feel for the IT industry here, in relation to your skillset, is seek.com.au, or careerone.com.au. However it is a few years since I have had to look for a job - they have come looking for me, which has been a nice change. I think there are more jobs in Brisbane than Sydney, but the rates are lower. There are not many IT jobs outside of the capital cities, even in big provincial cities like Townsville or Toowoomba - although there is always a chance to pick up something with a university, research outfit or something similar. The Gold Coast does have some software development, but I am not sure you would want to live there - it is very touristy, crowded and either sleazy or expensive, depending on where you are. The Sunshine Coast is more laid-back, but there is still a chance of picking up work there. Also you might find Queensland a bit too warm in Summer. I telecommute these days, so it does not really matter too much where I live (except the kids are all in senior school/uni here). If you do want to go to the country, or even live a bit outside a major city, make sure you check out the broadband and mobile phone access first. Broadband is rather expensive here compared to a lot of other countries - I am not sure about the UK. But it is a great country, and you are welcome here if you are not a terrorist. Visas are often not easy to come by, but there are ways around that. (The Government likes it if you bring lots and lots of money with you).

[DirtyAndy]

I'm a kiwi that has spent the last 11 years in London, accumulated a wife, a house and two kids - we are in the process of making a decision on whether to make a move back to New Zealand. First tip I'd give you is to think long and hard as to whether you want to bring up your kid(s if there are more to come) without grandparents, cousins etc. For men this is generally easy, but I think most women miss family more, and my kids talk about family a lot (4 & 6). Also whilst it is normally easy enough to find a babysitter so you can go out, family offer the ability to get rid of the kids for a night or two, or during the day when you want to go and buy tiles at homebase etc - 4 year olds and hardware stores do not go well together. In 6 years my wife and I have had 2 nights away from the kids. Don't forget it is expensive for family to get to Australia, and against income, even more expensive for you to get back to England - on a normal salary it is not something you will be doing once a year (and as your child approaches school age the school holidays are the most expensive time to travel, and the only long one is Christmas / January - not the best time to have to visit England). So my number one tip would be to really explore that your family is willing to make that jump. From what I have looked at, the software development industry in Australia and New Zealand is different to the UK. There are not as many large firms that have dedicated IT departments and development teams. There are a lot more small businesses. Saying that, looking at your profile, you've come from hardware and have broad experience with loads of different development languages. Small quiet places (never been to Gold Coast but has a sleepy reputation) tend to need people that are flexible with what they can do, there are probably more opportunities for someone that can come in and be a bit of a jack of all trades, than for someone that would only describe themselves as a hardcore XYZ hacker. If you are flexible and really want to move you'll find a way to feed that family without too many problems. These countries are still lands of opportunity. Last tip is to really research what you are getting into, if you haven't been out there definitely do that before you up sticks. Houses are much cheaper than in the UK, but then incomes are much less, and at the moment the exchange rate sucks, so any pounds you can take wont go far (wait a year or two I think). If you live in a three bed terrace here I probably wouldn't expect to be moving to a five be

[ChrisBraum]

Christian Graus wrote:

It's still the best bloody country to live in on the earth.

Oh I quite agree! After South Africa it is the best. ;P ;P