How does an American citizen live in Australia or New Zealand? 1) as a long-term visitor, 2) as a citizen?
How is the life in those two countries for an expatriate American? Quality of life? Quantity of life? How do the habits and attitudes of the citizens there radically differ from ours? How difficult is it to survive economically?
Immigration - 2 Answers
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1 :
Depoends how you get the visa to live there http://www.immi.gov.au/
2 :
First of all, you have to have a visa to come here (I am an American living and working in New Zealand as a skilled migrant, so I will focus on New Zealand.) Unless you are independently wealthy, you can't really be a "long term visitor". When you come into the country, you have to have a return, or onward bound ticket. If you want to be a citizen, you must first become a permanent resident - the easiest ways to do that are if you are in a genuine and stable relationship and have lived together for about a year and can supply documentation of that relationship in the way of shared accounts or property, etc. (A marriage certificate is not acceptable proof). Or, you can come here with a skill that this country needs and wants. For instance, I am a nurse, and with the nursing shortage here, I was able to get permanent resident status fairly quickly. To be a citizen of New Zealand, you must live and work here for at least 5 years and meet the other requirements to apply for citizenship. Your other questions are more difficult to answer because of all the variables. What I consider a decent quality of life may not be your idea of the same. As far as quantity of life, well, I suppose I have about the same quantity as anyone else! I would say you would need to live here for about 2 years to adapt to the lifestyle here. It is difficult to adjust, even though it is an English speaking country. Just driving a car takes a lot of thought - left hand side of the road, right hand drive vehicles and roundabouts make it difficult to adjust your thinking and driving initially takes A LOT of concentration or you will soon find yourself in a bad accident or dead. I do find that customer service is not a well known or understood concept here. When people say they will call you back to confirm an appointment they usually don't. I think you would find that attitudes here are more liberal. Being an unmarried, or de facto, couple is no big deal. Non-heterosexual relationships are legally recognized. People don't seem to be so hung up on how they look or how they dress, or what they have. Whether you can survive economically depends on a lot of things - what sort of skills you have and how much you can make doing what you do, how extravagant your lifestyle is - can you drive a 12 year old car or do you HAVE to have something new? Can you share a house with several other people or do you need to live in your own space and can you afford that? The cost of living here is very high. Property costs are also high as are food prices and the cost of power and internet. Do you need to see movies every week, or hit the pubs every weekend? Do you need to spend money on expensive hobbies or are you happy to just sit on a beach and enjoy the world around you? Economic survival depends on what you consider an acceptable standard of living. Look at www.trademe.co.nz to see property prices and what it costs to rent or buy a place to live. Jobs are there, too. For food prices, see www.woolworths.co.nz. Check out the New Zealand Herald online to find out what is happening in New Zealand today.
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