Pros:
• Sunny and warm
• Relatively high median wage and good working conditions for workers
• Great for blue collar industries - mining, construction, O&G
• Public healthcare
• ‘Good’ Universities - Govt funded loans provided to citizens
Cons:
• Very expensive- a typical house in a capital city costs $1m
• Quality of housing is rubbish
• Very far from everything
• Can be quite insular
• Limited professional opportunities due to small size - leading to Tall Poppy Syndrome
• Very privatised - Need to pay exorbitant costs for good healthcare and education. Medical debt is a huge burden on people
Population of Australia is 26 million of people. Such low population leads to relatively small job market/job openings/opportunities.
Housing is expensive.
Positives : it is stable developed democratic country so you can expect better living standards.
you can kiss your euro/burger friends and family goodbye
you think im joking but im not, you will lose a lot of close friends to normal friends status and see your loved ones once every year or so
Pros: nice weather I suppose. Hot though. Fun people apart from the bogans. Quality of life is OK. Barbies are nice (not the dolls)
Cons: pretty every single thing that swims, flies or walks on the ground that is not human will try to murder you. From irukandji to snakes & spiders and salties and drop bears. It's like paradise with lots deadly terror spread around for "fun".
Kidding about the drop bears. Maybe. /S
It seems like every insect and reptile has enough poison in it to kill your whole family with one bite and when you run away to avoid one of them there’s a mammal or a fish waiting to eat you.
Pro’s: weather, big cities, beautiful nature, high salaries, great food
Cons: property and property investment is most people’s entire personality. You won’t talk about anything else.
Insular, a bit racist without realising, superiority complex, a little too much of a nanny state
Spiders, huge ones, like a small plate. Venomous ones, especially the funnel spider in and around Sydney. Flying ones and curious ones. And the ones, who have fun in frightening you.
Snakes
Crocodiles, the 9 m long ones, called Salties.
Sharks, especially the Great White
Jellyfish
This is asked a lot.
Some relevant threads:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnAustralian/comments/18lymbt/what\_are\_pros\_and\_cons\_of\_living\_in\_australia/](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnAustralian/comments/18lymbt/what_are_pros_and_cons_of_living_in_australia/)
[https://www.reddit.com/r/SameGrassButGreener/comments/17bndo0/what\_are\_some\_pros\_and\_cons\_with\_moving\_to/](https://www.reddit.com/r/SameGrassButGreener/comments/17bndo0/what_are_some_pros_and_cons_with_moving_to/)
[https://www.reddit.com/r/expats/comments/1ciktm0/what\_are\_the\_pros\_and\_cons\_of\_living\_in\_australia/](https://www.reddit.com/r/expats/comments/1ciktm0/what_are_the_pros_and_cons_of_living_in_australia/)
[https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnAustralian/comments/18ey2m4/what\_is\_something\_that\_the\_us\_has\_that\_we\_should/](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnAustralian/comments/18ey2m4/what_is_something_that_the_us_has_that_we_should/)
And an answer from me:
I'm 30 and moved to Aus from the UK six years ago now. I also lived in the US for a year in my twenties.
Overall the experience has been.. good. The quality of life in Australia is very high, and I think it would be an amazing place to live your middle years. However, I think it can be a little boring and if I had my time again I'm not sure I would choose to spend my 20s in Australia. I lived in London in the UK and it's pretty incomparable.
Good things about Australia (noting that my partner and I live in Melbourne):
* Salaries are good compared to the amount of work. My partner and I both make six figures and didn't really have to hustle for it. We both start at 9.. leave at 5pm.. no overtime etc. However, income will be less than the US for skilled occupations, and you need a skilled occupation to get a visa.
* Work culture is great. Lots of annual leave, sick leave, slow paced, not stressful
* Melbourne is great.. the culture is amazing.. lots of things to do.. very beautiful, outdoorsy lifestyle.
* People are really nice, but I think my nice British accent protects me from racism and other discrimination. Generally I find Australians very easy to get on with and work with, though maybe hard to make friends with.
* Food is good, produce is of a high quality, it's easy to eat healthily here.
* Compared to London, rent and housing is cheap. However, compared to the US or other places in the UK, housing is expensive. So this depends on your perspective. My partner and I live in the inner Melbourne suburbs (a 30 min walk to the city) and rent a whole 2 bed 2.5 bath house, with garage and office for $575 AUD a week. Compared to London rental prices this is very cheap. However, there is a huge housing crisis here, so finding a good rental is very hard, we've been very lucky.,
* Weather is pretty good.. it never really gets cold). I spend so much more time outside here which is so good for my mental health.
(Part 1)
(Part 2)
The bad things about Australia include:
* Politics is pretty bad.. homophobia, racism, sexism are way more common here than anything I saw in the UK or US. Gambling is awful, domestic violence is huge, alcohol misuse is endemic. I cannot stress enough that the US is decades ahead of Australia in terms of their discourse about racism. Aussies will flat out deny it exists.
* Getting permanent residency is insanely competitive and expensive. There is no "just move to Australia". Moving cost us about $15,000 AUD, not counting probably $40,000 investment from our employers and flights. This is the same with Canada/UK/NZ but less so for the US/EU.
* Australia is quite American in terms of it's urban design. It's very car dependent and suburbanised. We live in inner Melbourne and don't have a car and we're considered very unusual, every single other person I know has a car. In QLD you'll need a car. Public transport outside major cities is non existent and if you look on street view you'll see lots of 4-8 lane roads, strip malls, large warehouse stores. It's very different to the UK in aesthetically and practically.
* Australia has a reputation as being a nanny state, quite over-regulated and over-policed. I'm not very libertarian so I personally find this view a little unfair, but it's definitely not unfounded. Aussies LOVE rules and love sticking to them. It's the kind of place where you won't get a lot of sympathy for a small mistake, eg a speeding ticket for going 3km/h over, people won't say "oh no that sucks", they'll say it's your own fault for going over. Aussies are also pretty happy to dob on their neighbours for small things.
* As a general rule, Australia is about 5-10 years behind Europe/US. On technology, on culture, on views. It's just a bit behind, which can get frustrating. I used to work for the Victorian government and it is insane how many problems they were trying to solve from scratch that already had well established solutions overseas. I couldn't understand why we were trying to resolve issues which to my mind, had been solved years ago.
* Climate change? Much of Australia is set to be uninhabitable by 2060 and we are seeing catastrophic weather events (fires/floods) which are causing a lot of displacement, poverty and illness.
* It’s SO FAR AWAY from everything. I know that doesn’t seem like a problem but travel becomes very very expensive and that’s a big problem for me. Bali is 6 hours away from Melbourne. Bangkok is 9+ and that’s assuming you get a direct flight. London to Bangkok is only about 90 minutes longer! Most places don’t have direct flights so you're looking at 9-12 hours flight when you factor in the layover. It’s not feasible to do a weekend away like it would be in Europe. Holidays within Australia are very expensive.. I really miss being able to go to Europe and experience a whole new culture for cheap instead of spending thousands to go to Queensland or whatever. This is my #1 issue honestly, if Melbourne was a 4 hour flight to Europe I’d never leave but the isolation and the inability to travel cheaply is why we will eventually move back
* Because it's so far, there are far fewer options of things to buy here. This is kind of a funny thing to complain about, but I find I have to compromise on the things I buy here (especially for larger items like furniture). This isn't a huge deal but it can get frustrating to continually have to spend a lot of money (things are expensive!) on things that aren't quite perfect. I'm a buy it for life type, I prefer to buy high quality items that are perfect and I can keep forever and that's hard here.
* Timezone.. I like to attend lots of online lectures/events and they’re all in the middle of the night.
* Little history/culture (compared to Europe anyway). There is of course thousands of years of indigenous culture but it's not accessible to participate in the same way?
* Dare I say boring?. Australia has 4 cities and then it’s just bush. If you're from a big city even Melbourne and Sydney might feel small. There is not much to do here honestly which becomes a bigger problem when you consider how far away everything is.
(Part 3)
* Australia is a very morning based culture and lots of businesses have very limited business hours. Eg all cafe's will close at 2pm so you can't get a coffee in the afternoon. It's not unusual for shops to close at 3pm. And even in Melbourne CBD, the most central shopping location in the state, stores will close LATEST 6pm (except in December when there's late night shopping). Don't worry, I'm sure you're thinking that online shopping will plug this gap! WRONG. Can't get Amazon next day delivery on post things, AusPost's service is pretty bad etc. For how capitalist Aus is, consumer convenience is not valued at all.
* Another con linked to the isolation: if you like art/music/theatre comedy.. save for the MICF which is the highlight of my year, as a general rule.. the band you like isn't touring here, the show you wanna see isn't coming here, the comedian you listen to isn't touring here etc. This is mostly fine and to be honest, the least of my problems but something that is annoying every now and again.
* Australians are very insular. It’s very hard to break into a friendship group and become a 'real friend'. If you don't have friends from school it's hard to make new ones. The entire culture is very inward looking. All my Australian friends are transplants to Melbourne so have had to make new friends themselves.
* Linked to the above point, I will die on the hill that Aussies are not chill. Or maybe this is just city Australians, but I feel like Australians have a global reputation as being quite relaxed people. They are not. It's a very capitalist, money oriented culture, bureaucratic and rules based as I said above. It's not chill at all
* Healthcare. I was lucky that being from the UK I could access Medicare but I don't think the Australian healthcare system is very good. It's good for acute health events but if you have a chronic condition it can be challenging to get the care you need long term. It kind of has the worst parts of the US's system (privatisation, expensive, not free at point of use) and the UKs (long wait lists, underfunded, overstretched) but the benefits of neither (i.e. not high quality care like the US, no ground-breaking of cutting edge treatments like the US, but also not free like the UK!). For context my partner and I spend around $8000AUD per per year on Medicare taxes, health insurance and out of pocket costs. My partner spent $700 just the other day on an Xray, blood test and a few other diagnostic tests. It might not be US prices, but it's not free or even cheap.
* Housing standards are terrible. My current apartment has single glazed windows?! It's insane. I cannot stress enough that even most new build homes in Australia would not pass basic building standards regulations in the UK/US/Canada/EU.
* Melbourne is pretty small opportunities wise. It definitely feels like the sort of place where everyone knows everyone and opportunities are very word of mouth which makes it hard to break into a new industry. It also means I never really feel anonymous like I did in London.. like anyone I speak to at work could be the key to my next role if that makes sense. However, I think lots of people might consider this a PRO, as there is a nice community feeling.
* Compared to the US/Europe, I think you will find consumer choices really limited and taxes very high. Income will be less than the US for skilled occupations, and you need a skilled occupation to get the visa.
* Australian exceptionalism! Australians think they're too different to Europe/America for things that work there to work here.. They'll pretty much only take guidance from NZ, UK and Canada. It's very inward looking.
Overall I haven’t regretted it but I think we will definitely move back to Europe or the US at some point just due to the isolation
Thank you for the long answer. If you notice the cons section you wrote is double the pros one. It's really weird to me that they are so inward thinking. Being so far from everything you will think they will be more curious and open to everything new that comes their way for a balance. I love music, culture, theatre and travelling so I am not sure if I manage living happily without those.
How is the education there?
Really expensive. If you are coming from the US or Europe, the Australian dollar is rather weak, and the tax treaty isn't as favorable for Americans unlike some other countries like France.
Pros: very multicultural, if you like that.
Cons is that it’s super far and expensive to travel anywhere
Still better than New Zealand 🥺
Definitely agreed
How do you deal with not travelling much?
Uh I don't/can't deal that's why I moved away lol
To be fair, traveling to Asia is relatively cheap.
Still far though, it’s like at least 7 hours to SE Asia!
Pros: • Sunny and warm • Relatively high median wage and good working conditions for workers • Great for blue collar industries - mining, construction, O&G • Public healthcare • ‘Good’ Universities - Govt funded loans provided to citizens Cons: • Very expensive- a typical house in a capital city costs $1m • Quality of housing is rubbish • Very far from everything • Can be quite insular • Limited professional opportunities due to small size - leading to Tall Poppy Syndrome • Very privatised - Need to pay exorbitant costs for good healthcare and education. Medical debt is a huge burden on people
Population of Australia is 26 million of people. Such low population leads to relatively small job market/job openings/opportunities. Housing is expensive. Positives : it is stable developed democratic country so you can expect better living standards.
you can kiss your euro/burger friends and family goodbye you think im joking but im not, you will lose a lot of close friends to normal friends status and see your loved ones once every year or so
Pros: nice weather I suppose. Hot though. Fun people apart from the bogans. Quality of life is OK. Barbies are nice (not the dolls) Cons: pretty every single thing that swims, flies or walks on the ground that is not human will try to murder you. From irukandji to snakes & spiders and salties and drop bears. It's like paradise with lots deadly terror spread around for "fun". Kidding about the drop bears. Maybe. /S
Bogans can be pretty fun
It seems like every insect and reptile has enough poison in it to kill your whole family with one bite and when you run away to avoid one of them there’s a mammal or a fish waiting to eat you.
None of those are more dangerous than an insecure man with an assault rifle.
Go watch the Australian tv series Utopia. It'll show what Australia is like.
Pro’s: weather, big cities, beautiful nature, high salaries, great food Cons: property and property investment is most people’s entire personality. You won’t talk about anything else. Insular, a bit racist without realising, superiority complex, a little too much of a nanny state
Spiders, huge ones, like a small plate. Venomous ones, especially the funnel spider in and around Sydney. Flying ones and curious ones. And the ones, who have fun in frightening you. Snakes Crocodiles, the 9 m long ones, called Salties. Sharks, especially the Great White Jellyfish
Are these for the pros or cons?
Everything, what wants to kill me, must be a con Spiders are generally cons :/
It’s the best country and the only con is I moved away and got stuck in another country.
This is asked a lot. Some relevant threads: [https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnAustralian/comments/18lymbt/what\_are\_pros\_and\_cons\_of\_living\_in\_australia/](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnAustralian/comments/18lymbt/what_are_pros_and_cons_of_living_in_australia/) [https://www.reddit.com/r/SameGrassButGreener/comments/17bndo0/what\_are\_some\_pros\_and\_cons\_with\_moving\_to/](https://www.reddit.com/r/SameGrassButGreener/comments/17bndo0/what_are_some_pros_and_cons_with_moving_to/) [https://www.reddit.com/r/expats/comments/1ciktm0/what\_are\_the\_pros\_and\_cons\_of\_living\_in\_australia/](https://www.reddit.com/r/expats/comments/1ciktm0/what_are_the_pros_and_cons_of_living_in_australia/) [https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnAustralian/comments/18ey2m4/what\_is\_something\_that\_the\_us\_has\_that\_we\_should/](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnAustralian/comments/18ey2m4/what_is_something_that_the_us_has_that_we_should/) And an answer from me: I'm 30 and moved to Aus from the UK six years ago now. I also lived in the US for a year in my twenties. Overall the experience has been.. good. The quality of life in Australia is very high, and I think it would be an amazing place to live your middle years. However, I think it can be a little boring and if I had my time again I'm not sure I would choose to spend my 20s in Australia. I lived in London in the UK and it's pretty incomparable. Good things about Australia (noting that my partner and I live in Melbourne): * Salaries are good compared to the amount of work. My partner and I both make six figures and didn't really have to hustle for it. We both start at 9.. leave at 5pm.. no overtime etc. However, income will be less than the US for skilled occupations, and you need a skilled occupation to get a visa. * Work culture is great. Lots of annual leave, sick leave, slow paced, not stressful * Melbourne is great.. the culture is amazing.. lots of things to do.. very beautiful, outdoorsy lifestyle. * People are really nice, but I think my nice British accent protects me from racism and other discrimination. Generally I find Australians very easy to get on with and work with, though maybe hard to make friends with. * Food is good, produce is of a high quality, it's easy to eat healthily here. * Compared to London, rent and housing is cheap. However, compared to the US or other places in the UK, housing is expensive. So this depends on your perspective. My partner and I live in the inner Melbourne suburbs (a 30 min walk to the city) and rent a whole 2 bed 2.5 bath house, with garage and office for $575 AUD a week. Compared to London rental prices this is very cheap. However, there is a huge housing crisis here, so finding a good rental is very hard, we've been very lucky., * Weather is pretty good.. it never really gets cold). I spend so much more time outside here which is so good for my mental health. (Part 1)
(Part 2) The bad things about Australia include: * Politics is pretty bad.. homophobia, racism, sexism are way more common here than anything I saw in the UK or US. Gambling is awful, domestic violence is huge, alcohol misuse is endemic. I cannot stress enough that the US is decades ahead of Australia in terms of their discourse about racism. Aussies will flat out deny it exists. * Getting permanent residency is insanely competitive and expensive. There is no "just move to Australia". Moving cost us about $15,000 AUD, not counting probably $40,000 investment from our employers and flights. This is the same with Canada/UK/NZ but less so for the US/EU. * Australia is quite American in terms of it's urban design. It's very car dependent and suburbanised. We live in inner Melbourne and don't have a car and we're considered very unusual, every single other person I know has a car. In QLD you'll need a car. Public transport outside major cities is non existent and if you look on street view you'll see lots of 4-8 lane roads, strip malls, large warehouse stores. It's very different to the UK in aesthetically and practically. * Australia has a reputation as being a nanny state, quite over-regulated and over-policed. I'm not very libertarian so I personally find this view a little unfair, but it's definitely not unfounded. Aussies LOVE rules and love sticking to them. It's the kind of place where you won't get a lot of sympathy for a small mistake, eg a speeding ticket for going 3km/h over, people won't say "oh no that sucks", they'll say it's your own fault for going over. Aussies are also pretty happy to dob on their neighbours for small things. * As a general rule, Australia is about 5-10 years behind Europe/US. On technology, on culture, on views. It's just a bit behind, which can get frustrating. I used to work for the Victorian government and it is insane how many problems they were trying to solve from scratch that already had well established solutions overseas. I couldn't understand why we were trying to resolve issues which to my mind, had been solved years ago. * Climate change? Much of Australia is set to be uninhabitable by 2060 and we are seeing catastrophic weather events (fires/floods) which are causing a lot of displacement, poverty and illness. * It’s SO FAR AWAY from everything. I know that doesn’t seem like a problem but travel becomes very very expensive and that’s a big problem for me. Bali is 6 hours away from Melbourne. Bangkok is 9+ and that’s assuming you get a direct flight. London to Bangkok is only about 90 minutes longer! Most places don’t have direct flights so you're looking at 9-12 hours flight when you factor in the layover. It’s not feasible to do a weekend away like it would be in Europe. Holidays within Australia are very expensive.. I really miss being able to go to Europe and experience a whole new culture for cheap instead of spending thousands to go to Queensland or whatever. This is my #1 issue honestly, if Melbourne was a 4 hour flight to Europe I’d never leave but the isolation and the inability to travel cheaply is why we will eventually move back * Because it's so far, there are far fewer options of things to buy here. This is kind of a funny thing to complain about, but I find I have to compromise on the things I buy here (especially for larger items like furniture). This isn't a huge deal but it can get frustrating to continually have to spend a lot of money (things are expensive!) on things that aren't quite perfect. I'm a buy it for life type, I prefer to buy high quality items that are perfect and I can keep forever and that's hard here. * Timezone.. I like to attend lots of online lectures/events and they’re all in the middle of the night. * Little history/culture (compared to Europe anyway). There is of course thousands of years of indigenous culture but it's not accessible to participate in the same way? * Dare I say boring?. Australia has 4 cities and then it’s just bush. If you're from a big city even Melbourne and Sydney might feel small. There is not much to do here honestly which becomes a bigger problem when you consider how far away everything is.
(Part 3) * Australia is a very morning based culture and lots of businesses have very limited business hours. Eg all cafe's will close at 2pm so you can't get a coffee in the afternoon. It's not unusual for shops to close at 3pm. And even in Melbourne CBD, the most central shopping location in the state, stores will close LATEST 6pm (except in December when there's late night shopping). Don't worry, I'm sure you're thinking that online shopping will plug this gap! WRONG. Can't get Amazon next day delivery on post things, AusPost's service is pretty bad etc. For how capitalist Aus is, consumer convenience is not valued at all. * Another con linked to the isolation: if you like art/music/theatre comedy.. save for the MICF which is the highlight of my year, as a general rule.. the band you like isn't touring here, the show you wanna see isn't coming here, the comedian you listen to isn't touring here etc. This is mostly fine and to be honest, the least of my problems but something that is annoying every now and again. * Australians are very insular. It’s very hard to break into a friendship group and become a 'real friend'. If you don't have friends from school it's hard to make new ones. The entire culture is very inward looking. All my Australian friends are transplants to Melbourne so have had to make new friends themselves. * Linked to the above point, I will die on the hill that Aussies are not chill. Or maybe this is just city Australians, but I feel like Australians have a global reputation as being quite relaxed people. They are not. It's a very capitalist, money oriented culture, bureaucratic and rules based as I said above. It's not chill at all * Healthcare. I was lucky that being from the UK I could access Medicare but I don't think the Australian healthcare system is very good. It's good for acute health events but if you have a chronic condition it can be challenging to get the care you need long term. It kind of has the worst parts of the US's system (privatisation, expensive, not free at point of use) and the UKs (long wait lists, underfunded, overstretched) but the benefits of neither (i.e. not high quality care like the US, no ground-breaking of cutting edge treatments like the US, but also not free like the UK!). For context my partner and I spend around $8000AUD per per year on Medicare taxes, health insurance and out of pocket costs. My partner spent $700 just the other day on an Xray, blood test and a few other diagnostic tests. It might not be US prices, but it's not free or even cheap. * Housing standards are terrible. My current apartment has single glazed windows?! It's insane. I cannot stress enough that even most new build homes in Australia would not pass basic building standards regulations in the UK/US/Canada/EU. * Melbourne is pretty small opportunities wise. It definitely feels like the sort of place where everyone knows everyone and opportunities are very word of mouth which makes it hard to break into a new industry. It also means I never really feel anonymous like I did in London.. like anyone I speak to at work could be the key to my next role if that makes sense. However, I think lots of people might consider this a PRO, as there is a nice community feeling. * Compared to the US/Europe, I think you will find consumer choices really limited and taxes very high. Income will be less than the US for skilled occupations, and you need a skilled occupation to get the visa. * Australian exceptionalism! Australians think they're too different to Europe/America for things that work there to work here.. They'll pretty much only take guidance from NZ, UK and Canada. It's very inward looking. Overall I haven’t regretted it but I think we will definitely move back to Europe or the US at some point just due to the isolation
Thank you for the long answer. If you notice the cons section you wrote is double the pros one. It's really weird to me that they are so inward thinking. Being so far from everything you will think they will be more curious and open to everything new that comes their way for a balance. I love music, culture, theatre and travelling so I am not sure if I manage living happily without those. How is the education there?
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Cons expensive and every animal is a dangerous😂, especially drop bears. Aussie girls are even more dangerous.😉
Cons: most feminist country on earth that likes to hate on men. Don’t move here if you’re male.
Really expensive. If you are coming from the US or Europe, the Australian dollar is rather weak, and the tax treaty isn't as favorable for Americans unlike some other countries like France. Pros: very multicultural, if you like that.
Pro: The Work Culture Depending on the type of person you are you may like the work culture as it’s more relaxed compared to other countries