Its 7% plus GST we got it 1/2% less for having two properties with them.
Will you stay in NZ till your container arrives?
Here tenants only have to give 2 weeks notice so homes are advertised basically when they are vacant if you know what I mean.Make sure you have plenty of ID they want the world when renting a home with no rental history!!

No head over, nowhere to stay here, job is over there.

Oh yeah, credit cards, I am going to miss my credit card, we pretty much live off it and pay it off each month. Hopefully can set up a new one fairly quickly, what a bummer we can't just keep using our existing one without incurring the foriegn exchange fees lol. It's such a pretty card

We leased a new car when we got here. Lost so much selling the NZ one we never want to own again.
If you like the one you have and won't be able to afford new, I'd cost out bringing yours over with you. You need to get an importation licence and if it's a Japanese import you may struggle. The licence costs about $50 I think and when you get it here it will need a road worthy and you may well be told it needs a bit of work done to comply, but Uncle and Aunt still found it worthwhile.

OH OK so when are you looking at heading over??
We got our credit cards when we came over for 4 days about a month before we moved so they were waiting for us at the bank. DONT do what we did and cut up NZ one knowing we had Aussie one. We were left stranded at the airport as EVERY car rental agency want a credit card even if you are paying cash and prepared to pay a deposit!We arrived on a friday so couldnt get the blimmon card till the monday.Not a great start having to get a bus up to the sunshine coast which all our belongs in 3 suitcases and a grumpy kid and DH in tow!
Oh and on the upside LOVELY weather over here. I live in shorts and a TShirt most days.

Hmm... I'd love to bring it over HC, but it's a 2003 Galant station wagon (NZ new) and they don't seem to exist in Australia beyond the late '90s, so I imagine parts would be hard to get for servicing etc. (And just to be difficult - I really like to drive, not just steer, so I love manual cars - it was hard work finding the one I have!!)

HK - approx end of September - ie 5/6 weeks away. Would be good to keep a NZ CC actually when I think about it. Decisions, decisions lol.

We looked into bring our car over we had a Toyoto Prado and it was going to cost a fortune $5K shipping plus GST on the value of the car plus some sort of taxes just was not worth it we were also advised by shipping company that unless work is paying personally its not worth the cost of bringing it.
We were gutted, we sold our car in NZ for $18K and here they are going for about $26K. We just totally downgraded our vehicles and brought a 2005 Ford Falcon which cost $18K.I have only just got a second car for me a 2001 Holden Vectra V6 cost me $10K friggin expensive I tell you.

Thought I'd seen something about setting up Australian bank accounts from NZ... http://www.workingin-australia.com/categories/96

The Westpac link even specifies you can apply for a CC from overseas

Yes, the shipping of the car is not cheap, but it can work out worthwhile compared with the cost of buying the same car here. I know Uncle and Aunt bought their car which was worth well under 10K in NZ, they paid to bring it over, paid the GST and the bits and pieces that needed doing, and used it here until they sold it for so much more than they would have in NZ that the difference paid for the shipping etc. Also if you don't have a lot of stuff the car can sometimes go in your container with your personal effects packed around it.

F&R are you sure your car isn't sold under another name in Australia? I've noticed that that seems to happen quite a bit. But if not then you probably wouldn't be allowed to bring it anyway because of the parts issue.

It is worthwhile keeping a NZ CC and bank account, they come in handy quite often.

Hi there, we've done it! We've been in South Australia for just over two months now and I say go for it (well I know you are already, but you know!). You'll find loads of positives, just think of it as a big adventure. Sounds like you and your DH are good at working things thru, you will be FINE.

I know what you mean re the Playcentre thing, I did up to Course 3 with them and I feel like I learnt heaps too. You'll find other things here tho, Playgroups are HUGE here in SA and much more organised than I recall NZ ones being, and parents run them.

Look forward to hearing how you get on!

We have left our NZ accounts open too, pity it has no money in it at the mo .. oh well thats what you get when you have a couple of trips back to NZ in 5 months. Ohh and flights return from Aus seem a heap cheaper than flights return from NZ, we got return flights for $34 Aus dollars for me, $16 Aus dollars for Liam and $6 for connor it was aprox $60 return for 3 of us about 4 months ago, then the tax brought it up to about $500 for 3 return, which is nothing really. I could only assume that Brissy flights will be cheap too.

I thought it was very expensive to bring a car over.. Its the Duty thats was costly as well as the actual cost to ship. We brought DH dirt bike over but because its not road registered it was a little cheaper, but still quite $$$.

We set up the bank accounts before coming over, went with Westpac, they seem to be OK. No rave rave about them but handy to have an account waiting to be authorised and cards to be collected.

You can set up family assistance before leaving.

I would recommend trying to send your container well ahead so that you arrive around the time that it should be clearing through customs.

Renting a house out of the country was a little tricky but inventually we found a realestate agent willing to work around some of the rules, DH new company wrote a letter that we submitted to the real estate agents to help.

The subsidy for childcare threshold is higher!

Glad I stumbled on this - We are looking at heading over to Brissy early next year.

Could someone tell me more about the childcare subsidy and family assistance please. I think it was you Venus, who very kindly alerted me to the later. But I've not been able to find any info on how much etc.

there are online calculators at http://www.familytassist.gov.au but the child care benefit doesn't have one (well not that I have found). I believe the cut off for cc subsidy has or will increase to $106k or $110k......can't remember which. HTH

LouLou - where in SA are you? There are a couple of us kiwi Ebbers in the Northern suburbs (Tea Tree Gully way). How far South are you?

http://www.centrelink.gov.au/

There are two parts to family assistance, part A based on Hubbys/Partners income and Part B based on your income, for me who earns nothing here in Aus I get the full amount.

There are 3 childcare subsidy/assistance payments available. Childcare benefit, which they caluclate based on DH/DP income, they may say your entilled to 50% off but when you go to the actual childcare place they will say for example if their rate is $100 dollars a day, your entilled to 50% you still have to pay 76 dollars. (so I don't know how they work the numbers out) There is a childcare rebate, But you have to be in work, looking for work (and they check that your going to interviews etc) or studing. Because I don't work I don't qualify for this. If you do qualify you get back 30% of your out of pocket expenses ie the $76 dollars based on the above situation. Finally there is another one, which I recall what its actually called, maybe childcare assistance its is about 20c for every 5 dollars or something like that, and only some places are approved carers/Kindergartens, I have the form somewhere that you lodge a couple of times a year and I don't think thats based on anything like income, looking for work etc. Next year when Liam goes to 3year old kinder we can claim some of the term fees back, its about 120 dollars a session. and he is doing 2 sessions (3hours) each term, so about 1k a year.

Very confusing and very expensive compared to NZ 20hours free for under 5. They also have a different way of starting children at kindy and school. The child has to be a certain age by a certain time, eg for school in Melb the child has to be 5 by April, so for Liam whos birthday is in July he won't start school until he is 5 1/2. Kindergartens are the same. in Perth the cut of is 1st July, which is even more annoying for our mid july baby.

Hope that helps

Hi tash - we are in McCracken just out of Victor Harbor! I remember you giving me some advice when we were looking at moving over and we drove thru Tea Tree Gully one day and I thought of you!

What is the thing with the supermarket trolleys?? They are fine here, they even have those ones I saw on Super Nanny once where there are two seperate seats at the back for the kids and they love it, like they are driving a car!!

I don't fully understand the Family Assistance thing, we have applied for it but haven't been given any confirmation yet and it's been ages, I might follow that up. We finally good Medicare sorted which seems good. Tax is a lot lower. We are much better off finanically here, cost of renting, cost of petrol, loads of things.

We kept our house in NZ too and are renting that out. We opened bank accounts online in NZ thru commonwealth bank and they seem fine too. NZ bank accounts are handy for the mortgage and different bills - cheapest way to send money home seems to be to post an Aussie cheque to someone in NZ and get them to bank it into your NZ account for you - exchange rate means you get more money and if you do it online it's at least $20 per time whereas chq is free! Commonwealth Bank were happy to give us a credit card as soon as we could prove that DH was working.

Love having an adventure and doing something different. Does suck not knowing anyone tho!

thread jack - Lou we are thinking of heading to Victor for a weekend holiday soon, would love to meet you if you are keen?

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (that's a big excited yes!!)... I'll pm you my email address, how exciting, my girl will adore your baby girl!

lou definitely follow it up, we had our first payment within a week and I don't think they back pay, we get aprox $220 a fortnight, you get a tax rebate of aprox $600 per child and 1k if your a "dependant wife" so I got about 2 1/2 k tax rebate last month and earned nothing

Oh thanks Venus, I will do for sure. We were told they'd back pay, I'll be gutted if they don't! Might try and ring now actually.. thanks