This document describes our `small` project of migrating to Australia. If others are contemplating doing the same I guess they could pick up some pointers in this booklet.
It sure is not easy getting permanent residential and work permits to Australia. That's at least what we found out and believe me; it was a hell of a lot more work than we initially thought.
Many people end up asking us what the heck we want to do in Australia. For some reason there are alot of people thinking it alot harder to move there rather than just uptown or to the neighbouring country. There are of course differences, but not that many besides all the cultural aspects.
I for one, Jorgen Skogstad, have had plans and thoughts to move abroad for quite some time. For some reason I have never actually gotten around to realising them. Initial plans were to move to England and London as this would be the easiest way `out` since we have relatives there and we were pretty familiar with the workings of that country. But then one weekend during the summer of 2002 myself and my fiance was talking about moving abroad and discussing England. Then for some reason the suggestion about Australia was put on the table and we were looking at eachother in silence for quite some time. I guess we were both looking for reasons not to go there, but after a couple of minutes none of us could find any. Therefore we just smiled and agreed that that might be a good idea. After that things really started to snowball and we began investigating the workings of the australian migration system.
Well, before going into detail about that we have to tell about the little snag we had when we were talking about this. We were about to have a little baby. We did not then know that we would get a little baby girl (lucky for us!), but we knew we had to take into account that we were going to have a little one. This would of course set the guidelines on how to proceed. Not that a baby does much fore or against, but it does require a bit of planning.
After debating for some weeks we did agree that moving was out of the question for at least one year. We had to settle into the roles as parents and things had to cool down before we started to rip our whole lives apart with the big move. Little did we know that the Australian government has the worlds strictest migration policies in place (and getting tougher by the year!).
Well, there are in fact more details on why Australia was picked for us to be the promised lands! Myself and a friend from the `core` (I served one year military service in the Norwegian army) decided to go for a trip around Asia. During two hectic months in 1995 we went to places like;
Thailand
Hong Kong
China
Phillipines
Singapore
Indonesia (Bali)
Australia
Malaysia
Anyways; during our trip we visited alot of places, but the memories of Australia stuck, and still does. The weeks we had in Australia was the best and I must say that they have been the most memorable of all my vacation. What a lovely country! The people were nice. The bus driver we had from Sydney airport even drove off route to drop us off at the hostel in Kings Cross we were staying at! That's hospitality beyond `limits`! Even though the coutry is far away is pretty much the same `basics` as we are acustomed to from Europe. However, the Australians must have managed to brew together a perfect blend of a Euro-Asian Americanism that is their own. I loved it and the images I have from those places have stuck and for myself is the primary motivation for going back (moving!).
The one thing that was important for Ann-Kristin, my fiance, was that we plan to move to Adelaide in South Australia. She has a relative with family (kids too!) `down there` which would make her settling in much easier. So that became our `law`; if we got the permanent visa we had to move to Adelaide near them. I must admit that I would never have thought about moving to Adelaide myself. I had hardly ever heard of the place, but after reading and getting to know more about South Asutralia it seemed like a good choice. But beforehand I was more tuned to either Perth or Sydney (which I knew from before). For some reason Perth have always been kind of `romantic` and the vision of city closer to Singapore than the nearest other Australian town Adelaide seemed cool!
One of the basic requirements of the migration application is to present decent skills in English. That goes for both applicants. Therefore we had to sign up for IELTS tests. These tests are designed to check and score your ability to understand, speak, write and use the English language. They come in two flavours; academic and general. For the migration visa you are only required to take the general one, but if you do plan to do some education you might want to take the academic one. Some universities down under require this for `foreign` students (even though you will be considered a permanent resident upon being granted a visa it won't hurt you if you present a good IELTS score).
The test is fairly extensive so you should prepare if you are not using the english language in your work and/or schooling. There are material available for a few dollars. For our tests we got some preparation material through Folkeuniversitetet which proved essential for Ann-Kristin's testing. Just browsing through the requirements and how these tests are conducted is good. The cost for these tests are a whopping 1000 norwegian crowns and if you fail you will have to wait a few months before you are elligable to take another. Good system though! So; be prepared. At least learn how the tests are conducted and what is expected. That will be good learning and preparation for the big day.
We managed to get by these tests without problems. Even though I took the academic one I had not problems, but that might very well be because I was then working for Sun Microsystems (an american computer company) and using the english language every day. That helped me alot. Ann-Kristin also managed to get by with a decent score. More than enough to lodge the application later on, even though she was really anxios and nervous about the tests. She always is and then end up realising that it was not as bad as it was made out to be!
Here is a short presentation of the timelines of our emigration process. As you can see it is a lenghty process. Be advised that you have to be really patient and really willing to go through this as it is really expensive as well!
The time before july 2002
July 2003
July / August 2003
August 2003
September 2003
December 2003
January 2003
A traveller's history of Australia
Down under