And they wonder why some are leaving...

[tri boy]

I havn't browsed the West Aus employment scene for about a year, so I did a 5min search, mainly relating to previous work I used to do.
First hit went like this:
Heavy mechanical fitter, (mechanic).
Location. Tom Price. (Iron ore country)
2weeks on, 1 week off, fly in fly out.
$44/hr.
Heres the breakdown. 12hrs a day for 2weeks = 168 hrs worked. (no days off for two weeks)
44 by 168 =$7392 Aus gross. For two weeks!

The work is dusty, and dealing with big gear, but man, that is pretty good money. (the week off, fly to Bali, and kick back)

Now wheres my passport..........

Oh, and accom, and meals are free on fly in fly out jobs.

[Trudes]

Holy!!! That's wicked money!!! Always wondered why a friend of mine was always off to Australia for work like that!! He worked in some of the open mines driving trucks and always came home loaded and shattered! Worth it though!

[Mikkel]

Certainly, NZ can not compete on salaries.

Still, there are other positives about the place - otherwise I doubt you'd see quite as many europeans come here to work and study.

[007XX]

I've been considering Oz for a couple of months now...If labour gets in again, you can bet your sweet cantaloupe I'll be giving it probably more than just thoughts.

I absolutely adore New Zealand. I feel at home here. But I am tired of having to fight tooth and nail to be able to afford the simplest things.

[NZsarge]

My brother is in Brisbane and he's on around 115k I think, pays huge tax though.

[jim.cox]

I've been considering Oz for a couple of months now...If labour gets in again, you can bet your sweet cantaloupe I'll be giving it probably more than just thoughts.

I absolutely adore New Zealand. I feel at home here. But I am tired of having to fight tooth and nail to be able to afford the simplest things.

I'm thinking about about moving too

It used to be "why would you?"

Now its "why would you not?"

[avgas]

I've been considering Oz for a couple of months now...If labour gets in again, you can bet your sweet cantaloupe I'll be giving it probably more than just thoughts.

I absolutely adore New Zealand. I feel at home here. But I am tired of having to fight tooth and nail to be able to afford the simplest things.

Seconded - myself and g/f are a profession couple, but our spending money after rent and crap mean that we could buy a house buy 2050, let alone have kids. I have met unemployed people that make about 80% of my salary.

[avgas]

My brother is in Brisbane and he's on around 115k I think, pays huge tax though.

20-30K will be going towards super i imagine. But the good thing is when you leave the job - you get a payout. Not wait till 65.

[Whynot]

My brother is in Brisbane and he's on around 115k I think, pays huge tax though.

he would pay more tax in NZ

[Mully]

It's somethng Miss Mully and I have discussed. If Labour get back in (please, dear God no!!), it's a certainty.

[Headbanger]

20-30K will be going towards super i imagine. But the good thing is when you leave the job - you get a payout. Not wait till 65.

When I was in Aus my employer paid $50 a week into super, and $50 a week into redundecy over and above my wages, everytime I quit a job I got 2 or 3 grand payout, Plus a couple of grand at the end of every tax year.

Double time, triple time, travel allowance, meal money, clothing allowance,crib allowance.

WOOHOOO, The sun was always shining, and petrol was 52c cents a litre.



Never did feel like home though.

[HTFU]

Seconded - myself and g/f are a profession couple, but our spending money after rent and crap mean that we could buy a house buy 2050, let alone have kids. I have met unemployed people that make about 80% of my salary.

I feel your pain, we were in a similar position going nowhere in the city so just changed things up a bit with a school hostel job (very easy work) and moved to a small town.

That Aussy job equates to about 128k a year but not sure how it works for holiday pay etc. But definitely a good way to try and save some coin and get ahead. Two of my brothers over there (East Coast not West) doing well with standard 9-5 jobs. But the big coin is out west.

My brother back here, 15 years Joinery trade and is on $21 an hour . Keep saying to him he should be demanding more, heading to Aus or going into business himself. Considering some of the kitchens are $100000+ and going into multimillion dollar houses.

Have seriously thought of heading over to Aus myself but with the kids its a big call and actually have found it pretty easy to work around the raising costs of living and low wages in good old kiwi land.

With relief teaching, I get about $55 an hour so its about $180 a day in the hand for 5 hours work. A busy week lands $900 in the hand and finished by 3pm each day. Teachers at the top of the pay scale it would be $68 an hour, take home $260 a day and $1300 a week.

My partner gets $15 as a teacher aid and man does she earn every penny .

Helps having some weekend retail work that pays fairly well at $32 an hour ($25 in the hand) and $18 ($14 in the hand) driving a small delivery truck in the school holidays. Add in our hostel supervisors job at the school and we are fairly comfortable financially and still get most weekends and most of the school holidays with the kids and are saving a fair chunk of cash each year .

Still ride a GPX but .

[R6_kid:Me]

My father is currently earning around $1000AUD each day, for around 9hrs work... but he's used to working long hours as is ex-air force aircraft tech. He's doing computer systems stuff related to maintenace and planning.

His timetable is 9 days off (arrive back friday night and stays to the next sunday, fly out early monday morning) then he gets paid from the time he arrives at the airport to the time he leaves work on monday (in australia). Works for 12 days straight (mon-sun,mon-fri) and then around midday friday travels back to NZ (again paid while travelling). He gets free food + accom and they reimburse him for his airfares and taxi ride to the airport too. He is at Olympic Dam, approx 700km north of Adelaide.

Once i get my shit sorted i'm heading over there to do some support work for such projects as the one he is working on, and the starting rate i've been quoted is around $40-50AUD/hr, and possibly fly-in, fly-out within Aussie which is fine with me!

[MSTRS:Me]

....

My partner gets $15 as a teacher aid and man does she earn every penny .

....

Yeah - what's with that. They have to be qualified, they work damned hard, and then all the school hols off on no pay.
It sucks.

[mowgli]

You don't have to lift heavy gear to earn good money out back either. A friend left about ten years ago to be a cook for an opal mine in WA. She never came back except for a visit.