AUSTRALIA:Australia is a funny country...people at 40 strive to get a Gold Card having served in the Army, to make their lives easier when medical care is free anyway. People at 20 strive to get a Disability Pension so they don't have to ever deal with people like me...and all I am is a nice guy. Australia is, and has always been, a funny country. We are independent and yet the Queen of England is our head state. On every coin of ours, there she is. If that isn't hilarious, I don't know what is. If that doesn't devalue the country, and the people of Australia, I don't know what does.

Melbourne

Melbourne has been hard. It is ridiculously expensive and the pay is significantly less for nurses than in Queensland...and the work is far harder....and hardly anyone is in a union, so you are just basically fucked n comparison.

This is not an easy town. If you have no formal recognised qualifications, they fuck you into the ground and pay $8 an hour. That's normal. $8 an hour is normal. No continuity. No superannuation, no sick pay, no holidays no overtime pay no penalties...and $8 an hour... If you have formal skills, they fuck you a bit less.

The weather is weird but better than Cairns. After a year of working our guts out as middle aged/old people not flush with millions..or with anything much....this is a hard town...the hardest ive known in my 64 years in Australia....and you do really need a good reason to establish something, but we are on the slow mend now.

Still no point to buying a house or even a flat here...but still, as retirement beckons, towns like Ballarat look just fine in comparison to both Melbourne or Cairns, price wise...

As for Melbourne being the worlds most liveable city...it just isnt. Thats a fucking lie. In many ways it is an unwelcoming and aweful dump. IT is a relatively big city of 4 million that fails its own people, every day, and enjoys and profits by screwing its own people, every day. This is true.

In its way it is much like Sydney. When Australian cities get big they become much less like places for people to live in , and more like infections.

But we, my family, have stuck to the task at hand.

We are amazing.

Move to Melbourne from the provinces ?

Yes, it can be done. But when you have done that, when your reasons for being there have passed, move away.