I'm sorry to revive this thread yet once more. Things are progressing slowly but persistently. I have the 'official' offer letter electronically (for some reason the real offer can only be dealt with as paper).

I would be initially arriving on a 457 Visa. I've done the obligatory Google search on the topic and frankly said, these sorts of Visa's seem contentious. I particularly don't like that it seems limited to a four year stay and that there might be limitations on owning property.

I would appreciate any views from the group. At the end of the day, I am not one of those people that can just drop in for a couple of years already having planned to leave. Are there any fundamental concerns or problems originating on a 457 and deciding to stay for a life time?

You would have to apply for a new visa; your temporary visa will neither hurt nor help your future application. If you don't apply for a new visa at the expiry of your temporary visa, you cannot work in Australia. The only onerous terms are that you cannot change employers (the visa becomes invalid unless you can get approval from the Australian gov't, in practice this is never done) and you cannot sub-contract -- you must work directly for the hiring employer. Strictly interpretted this makes any consulting or off-site work illegal under this visa (within Australia). So your employer is neither helping nor hurting your long term relocation to Australia. Could they do more? Of course! Will they? Almost certainly not....this is the customary and usual arrangement, and from their standpoint all the drawbacks are advantages.

I grew up in Melbourne and later in life I got moved to Sydney by my employer. I lived in Sydney for 4 years and then spent the next 12 years living in the US. I have just returned to Australia and deliberately chose to return to Melbourne.

I have to say that I had no idea how much I would enjoy living in Melbourne again!

After 4 years in Sydney and 12 in the US, and having traveled extensively over that period of time all over Europe, Asia, and Latin America, I am unbelievably glad to be back in Melbourne.

The feel of the place is just so cosmopolitan. It feels very European in many ways, but definitely has an Australian character. Brunswick Street Fitzroy, Acland Street St Kilda, Chapel Street South Yarra/Prahran, and dozens of other strip shopping streets would be a major tourist attraction in large US cities.

The food, clothes, cultural aspects (including a great live music scene) really are outstanding.

At the moment, having just returned to Australia, I am living in Germany for 3 or 4 months. But I am looking forward to returning to Melbourne. It has changed so much over the last 20 years or so - and I mean that in a nice way. I was just in Queen Vic market last Saturday thinking how lucky I was to live in Melbourne! And it really doesn't matter where you live in Melbourne, because you can be in inner Melbourne from the outer suburbs in 30 minutes.

You will love it...

I first came to Aus on an employee sponsored 457 and after having been in the country for two years (and making myself invaluable ) my employee then sponsored my for permanent residency. If you can demonstrate that you are the only person who can do the job (a good migration agency should be able to show you how), you should be able to make some good progress. Good Migration lawyers arent that cheap though - my application cost over AU$6,000 but was well worth it.

Decision-day is quickly approaching. The internal paperwork is in hand. In fact as of today and much to my surprise, our company's intranet already shows me working for the Australian as well as the Swiss practice! So much for keeping my plans quiet amongst the work colleagues.

I still need to examine my European golden handcuffs and alternative positions that have been offered but within in the next 10 days (another 2-3 weeks after that for confirmation on the visa) I'll either be committed to Melbourne or staying in Europe.

Once that's taken care of hopefully the next question I post in this forum is how best to get to WP quickly. :-:

Don't be too concerned about the restrictions in owning property. Australian law says that purchases of residential property have to be screened by the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB). While this is a PITA it really is a formality and I understand it is *very* rare for an application to be refused.

As number_6 says holding a 457 is neither an advantage or a disadvantage in applying for permanent residency, although the fact that you've been in Australia for 4 years without causing trouble obviously won't hurt any subsequent application.

Options for permanent residency

1) Marry an Australian permanent resident - probably the most straightforward, but does have the drawback of having to find someone to marry. You also have to prove to DIMIA that you have a 'genuine and ongoing relationship'.

2) Employer sponsored permanent residency - more complicated but likely to be handled by your firm's lawyers. Obviously there has to be an incentive for your firm to do this as it represents significant cost to them.

3) Independent skilled visa - migration with eligibility based on your vocational skills, age and english language skills. You need to meet a points target based on a calculation from all these factors.

There are also other options based on starting a business or having substantial investments in Australia.

I would suggest that even if your firm is handling your visa for you it is worth arming yourself with as much information as possible. Australian visa laws are relatively straight forward, but the Department can be quite unforgiving of breaches that come to its attention.

Substantial information, including downloadble PDF booklets on all the PR visa classes is available at the DIMIA website here.

Mr. honu and I became permanent residents last year under the independent skilled visa category (#3 in the previous post). In order to qualify for this visa, the applicant (and his/her partner/spouse) must be younger than 45 when lodging the application. I don't know if #2 (permanent resident visa sponsored by your employer) has the same limitation, but I don't believe #1 (marrying someone residing here) does.

If anything, being already in the country might be an advantage if you end up pursuing number 3. Do make sure that you hire a good immigration agent if you decide to go that way (we thought we had, but we ended up having to do most of the work and research ourselves, due to the really crappy service we got). You can PM me if you have any specific question regarding #3.

I hope it'll become easy for you to figure out which choice to make. Both Mr. honu and I fell in love with this country when we first visited, and we're very very happy that we live here now! Our experience was a bit different because we were bringing our work with us, so for us the tricky part was choosing where to live (a great excuse to visit repeatedly and drive along the whole Estern Seaboard, from Daintree to the Great Ocean Road).

And you picked CBR????? wow! I admit to having only casually visited Canberra -- I'll have to go back and see it again, I must be missing something (it just wasn't the high point of my memories of Australia).

No number_6 , honu lives on the South Coast of NSW, somewhere near Merimbula, Canberra is her closest major airport. Anyway, there's nothing wrong with living in Canberra (although strictly speaking I live just over the border in southern NSW). Canberra has all the benefits of a big city, with a world class art gallery, two major museums, two major universities, good live theatre, lots of multicultural restaurants, and a world class rugby team , but doesn't have the big city problems of gridlocked traffic and violent crime. If you like sport, Canberra is a great place to live, with over 500km of cycleways plus the Institute of Sport facilities. The main ski resorts are a two-hour drive and the South Coast beaches are 1.5-2 hours away.

And if you really have to get a dose of a big city, Sydney is 2hrs45 on the motorway and 50 mins by QF 737 or Dash8 (see, I got it on-topic willyroo).

Ditto, Craigo!! I think Canberra is vastly underrated! It's a clean, pretty city, with lots of green spaces (hey, where else can you do some excellent birdwatching and spot a big family of Eastern gray kangaroos peacefully grazing a couple of kms from the CBD?), no traffic, great libraries, perfectly adequate stores, good restaurants, etc.

Nope, it doesn't have the stunning water views you get in Sydney, or the busy life, international metropolis feel of it, so you probably shouldn't put it on top of the list of cities to visit on your first trip to Oz. But it seems like a very very livable city. The only drawbacks are the occasional bad weather, and the maze-like city plan: it takes a few tries before you can get from point A to point B without going around in a big circle that returns you inevitably to point A.

Anyway, that's the *big* city for us Where we live now, there's 1 bank, 1 IGA, 1 chemist and a few cafes/restaurants (luckily, we like fish 'n' chips). No movie theaters, but the coastline is a dream...

It's all a matter of perspective honu. I grew up in the Central West of NSW, so when our family moved down here when I was in high school, I thought Canberra was a pretty cool place. During my years in the RAAF I lived in Toowoomba during my years at uni, then the outskirts of Brisbane, Newcastle and back to Canberra, with short stints in Townsville, Melbourne, Richmond and Darwin. When I came back to Canberra, I decided that I didn't want to leave. I love the outdoors lifestyle and the access to facilities that are comparable to the big cities.

By your description, it sounds like you live in one of the smaller communities on the South Coast, like Pambula or Tathra. I'll get to see a bit more of the coast over the next few years as my father and his wife have recently retired and bought a house in Merimbula. They've kept their house in Queanbeyan and will divide their time between the two, so I'll pop down to the coast after the ski season is finished. They decided to have two places because they like the Canberra lifestyle and are pragmatic enough to realise they'll need easy access to Canberra's excellent health facilities as they get older.

They are exactly the same, except for skiing and chocolate.

Yes, a lot of people have made the partial move from Canberra to the So. Coast lately (but it's still blissfully uncrowded here). We have a few friends who do the commute once or twice a month.

We actually live near Bermagui (Bermi for locals), the little fishing town that figures in half of the movie "The man who sued God" (the other half is shot in Sydney). Anyway, I forgot to mention one of our biggest attractions (besides the sea, the clean air, and the nice people who live here): there's a fantastic Italian gelato place on the Bermi-Tathra road (located in what used to be the veterinary clinic, so the sign on the door reads: Bermagui gelati clinic ). Check it out if you like gelato and you and your parents happen to drive this way.

Yes, it is.

I will be signing and sending through my acceptance of the offer in the next couple of days. It's all a matter of being next to a fax machine to receive, sign and return. Which isn't as simple as it sounds given all the bouncing around central Europe I've been doing recently.

Among other things, my employer has agreed to sponsor (and pay for) my permanent residency application after two years which is a fair enough commitment in return for the cost of the transfer.

Now that that is out of the way, I will be getting down to the serious logistics of coordinating the move, deciding on a 'home' golf club, and picking a footy team which I can become irrational over.

Anyone up for a round of golf in VIC in November?

Count me in for the Golf. Could well be a QF Forum First Annual Melbourne Golf Day.

In deciding on a Club in Melbourne, you may be surprised to know that many overseas clubs have reciprocal rights with local clubs. Might be worth checking existing overseas memberships that you hold.