A partnership visa in Australia costs nearly $7,000, plus the Migration Agent’s fees, making a total of over $10,000!
This is significantly higher than other countries, and about a six-fold increase on what the fee used to be just ten years ago.
The Federal Government sees immigration as a cash cow, as all visa fees have drastically increased within the last ten years.
Love really does hurt… especially in the hip pocket!
Centrelink is there for the needy, sick and disadvantaged, and yet provides the worst service of any government agency.
The top level of management needs to be sacked immediately, along with their middle management that publish outrageously incorrect phone answering statistics.
Then, and I know this will cost us, but there needs to be a Royal Commission into the whole Department and the policies currently in place. It could easily be a case of the right people being tied up by stupid beaurocracy. Until such a public, complete investigation is done those most in need of help in our society will continue to be treated with disdain.
We should all be ashamed, especially the policy makers who make it so difficult for Centrelink staff to do their job, for treating our people so badly.
To read the original story click here.
To The Hon Christian Porter MP: Centrelink payments should take into account your net income, NOT your gross income.
Counting your gross income is plain crazy, as you don’t get to keep it all, you pay taxes! And yet your “support” from Centrelink is reduced by every GROSS dollar you earn.
Just another way to cut people’s benefits and save the government money so they can spend big on wasteful promises and gain votes!
You can sign the petition here at ChangeAUS.
Adelaide is now more expensive to live in than Melbourne?? Thank you politicians and greedy utility companies, way to go!! We are so over-taxed in SA it’s a disgrace.
Desalination plants that never get turned on, expensive non-functional hospitals, mounds of money spent on reviews that have gone nowhere…thanks Labor!!
Visit the printed story here.
They should repay the lot out of their own pockets…to approve a grant application in one day when so many worthy health and art causes get constant rejections is disgusting and outright corrupt in my opinion.
This is more than I will pay in income tax during my lifetime, and they just give it away.
If they don’t lose their jobs (which they won’t) then corruption is proven and jail should follow!
You never know when your working life will end.
This time last year I was looking forward to the next stage of my career, now I am ill and will never go to work again.
I say this not for sympathy, as those close to me give me more than I deserve already, but to plead with you to act now on what you want to do, start that study, or knock on doors for that start you crave, or change careers NOW.
You have no idea how long you have, and regrets hurt far worse than all the “No’s” you’ll receive before you get your yes!
Go for it, or resign yourself to decades of regret, your choice.
As usual, the rich get richer and the poorer “should” benefit from higher wages from larger corporate profits, if they decide to pay them of course, or even think about paying them.
Higher incomes?? Hang on, we need to satisfy shareholders, to pay them dividends, and the fact that they (shareholders) are in the top percentage of rich people is just a mere coincidence.
Trust me, I’m a politician delivering tax cuts for the wealthy….I mean the needy…oh whatever, I’m off to choose my new car with the multiple millions the tax cuts just saved my company…
To read the full story click here.
Sorry, but to me the PokemonGO craze is just symptomatic of a desperate collective trying to escape from an uninspiring world. Sad.
There have always been fads (mine were yoyo’s and scateboards!) but unlike today’s versions which draw you into an enclosed world and drain your experiences of the outside world.
Talking to people (in particular the young and those from Asian backgrounds) is now an exercise in fighting to gain eye contact. Their phone is their most important possession, indeed studies have shown that a significant percentage would rather lose their hearing than their phone.
So our society doesn’t offer them enough to keep their interest in the real world, or is this just a fad?
If not a fad, then insurance companies will have to add “this policy does not cover self harm, including walking into objects or dangerous situations whilst your attention is distracted by using a smartphone.”
And who would have seen that coming??
The secret to a successful startup..? Sales. Without them no validation, no feedback, no customers, no business!
Follow the Lean Startup approach and do a controlled release of your product or service to some people (or businesses) you think would be interested.
By recording their feedback you will eliminate expensive future mistakes, discover that you were wrong and there is no market or receive a couple of orders which will allow you to beta test.
Another option is to contact one of the largest businesses you believe should be interested and offer to build your product/service especially for them. This gives you a real world test site, honest feedback (you can tell if they have been using it or not) and, if they stay with you until the product/service is finished, a testimonial and reference site for future prospects.
Much more efficient than spending a year building a business only to find there is no market for it!
My Chronic Illness & Other Thoughts 