I need some opinions urgently from Australian posters. I’ve been offered a permanent role in Brisbane where I will be primarily based with extensive travel inland to Mount Isa, Clemont and numerous small mining towns. I’ve scoured the web about Brisbane which is overwhelming positive but can’t find anything about the smaller towns.
The offer is 60k plus other benefits (accommodation and relocation costs). I live modestly, nothing ridiculously extravagant so was also wondering if its sufficient to cover Aus’s crazy cost of living.
I have a page about Queensland here: thewildeast.net/infocus/queensland/index.htm
Not a bad entry level salary considering travel and accommodation is covered. And it’s ‘Clermont’.
Queensland is awesome, take the chance to go. As for the money I’m not qualified to comment.
Queensland is a nice place, but it’s spoilt a bit by there being so many Queenslanders there.
your 60k should be OK if they pay for your accommodation in somewhere reasonable like along the River, or the Valley or St Lucia or even Paddington.
Clermont would be a bit of an unlucky town to end up in, but weekly business trips wouldn’t drive you too mad, I guess.
[quote=“urodacus”]Queensland is a nice place, but it’s spoilt a bit by there being so many Queenslanders there.
your 60k should be OK if they pay for your accommodation in somewhere reasonable like along the River, or the Valley or St Lucia or even Paddington.
Clermont would be a bit of an unlucky town to end up in, but weekly business trips wouldn’t drive you too mad, I guess.[/quote]
you really are a snob. OP, do your best to avoid the above-mentioned. Go west young man.
so, you’d be a Queenslander then?
Clermont is a little old town whose nicest feature is their flood memorial to the terrible floods of 1800 whenever. This makes me a snob?
… or is it the choice of suburbs that I mentioned? If wanting to live in a pretty part of town, like along the river, or an area with a vibrant night life like the Valley or even the uni area around St Lucia makes me a snob, then so be it. Snob I am!
Go west where? Like many cities in Australia, Brisbane is beset by traffic jams, and the further west you go, the worse they can be to live with, especially if you’re forced to commute by car (not many other options in Brisbane).
Queensland is great. I lived there for one year in the late 80s. Thoroughly enjoyed living in Brisbane (we lived in Algester). Every second or third weekend, we’d go to the Gold Coast and enjoyed Mermaid Beach the best. The Sunshine Coast north of Brisbane is quite nice as well, especially Noosa.
60K should be fine in the hinterland, but I’d say it was a bit low if your living in Brisbane where housing prices are pretty high and where the city is scattered in many respects (kind of like LA in that regard).
I spent the last ten years in Brisbane, and just moved out last year 
City transport is now fairly sweet. Buses, trains, ferries if you’re close enough to the river. Unfortunately Translink are all corrupt bastards (and I should know, both my parents work for them!) so they’ve upped the prices of paper tickets until you HAVE to use the SmartCard, but it’s not too bad… Fairly crowded though. I recommend trying different buses until you hit one that’s not usually too busy (they have ‘sweeper’ buses to pick up the overflow from the earlier ones, they’re usually fairly empty… going back a bus stop within the same zone can be good too).
Parking in the city is a nightmare. If you have to commute to the city, find a Park & Ride and get the bus. (or train, or ferry)
You’re looking at around $400/week plus utilities for a one bedroom unfurnished flat dead in the middle of the city (which will be very nice and new, most likely). Bond is two weeks’ rent and you need to pay two weeks’ in advance on top of that, so four weeks’ rent when you move in. When you move in TAKE PHOTOS OF EVERYTHING AND WRITE EVERYTHING DOWN. Australian real estate agents are nasty, nasty, nasty, horrible people. They will try to take $200 from your bond (deposit) for things like ‘dust around the edges of the wardrobes’ so make sure you cover than when you move in! realestate.com.au is a good place to get an idea.
SuperAmart, IKEA (quite exxy in Aus actually) and RadioRentals all sell furniture and have websites, so you can google them and get an idea of the price.
There are a bazillion sharehouses, my favourite spot to hunt is The QUT Student Guild 's website (you’ll have to google it… sorry!). Another good place is the notice boards in the university campuses, or the asian newspapers (if you can read chinese/japanese/korean… chinese ones aren’t as useful as the other two, as the other two are aimed primarily at students).
Best area for public transport is Woolloongabba/Mater Hill/Southbank area (quite trendy too) and the Sunnybank/Macgregor/Robertson area (where I grew up). These are the areas with the most bus lines all running through them, plus train (and ferry at Southbank, though you can walk to the city from Southbank/Mater Hill).
By car, I still say Southside’s better (sorry, I’m biased!) because there’s two, three main routes you can take to get into the city, whereas with the West and North you’ve only really got one each.
If you think you’ll miss Taiwan, move to Sunnybank.
Eating out: You’re looking at around $12-18 for a decent meal in an Aussie place, $8-13 for one in an Asian place (our massive Asian population means there are lots of these and they’re actually really good. Mostly in city/sunnybank areas, valley might be Chinatown but real Chinese don’t really go there), $5-9 for fast food.
I survived OK on $42K, so $60k should do you fine. Depends what you’re going to be doing with it though. You should be getting some kind of travel allowance and if it’s shift work you also get 15% shift allowance on top.
Stuff in the country is actually more expensive (tyranny of distance). I’ve never been to Mt Isa but I’ve been around there (Longreach - Karumba stretch… forgot what it’s called!) and you will find the people to be much more friendly and well-mannered. But the nearest town is about a 4hr drive away.
That’s all I can think of ATM, if you have any more specific questions I’d be happy to answer them! 
[quote]
… or is it the choice of suburbs that I mentioned? If wanting to live in a pretty part of town, like along the river, or an area with a vibrant night life like the Valley or even the uni area around St Lucia makes me a snob, then so be it. Snob I am! [/quote]
Uroducus, it’s not that you mentioned pretty parts of town, it’s that those areas have been overrun by yuppies.
The Valley’s still got a seedy feel to it, but that’s slowly fading and anyway, accommodation there’s fairly hard to come by (doable around brunswick street towards new farm though). New Farm up near James St is Yuppy Central, and if you walk down there you feel more like you’re in Xinyi near Taipei 101 than the Valley. Yes, it’s that bad.
The Brunswick St area’s been overtaken by yuppies too, they’re even building a hotel and apartment blocks on that little park overlooking the story bridge. (Government in QLD is completely f*&^ing crook.) The yuppies there are poorer, though.
St Lucia is a mix - you get the REALLY EXPENSIVE stuff coupled with all the student accommodation, which is still expensive there. Toowong, St Lucia, Taringa, all these are ‘nice part of town’ place now, though they’re at least mostly ‘established family’ sort of places.
Paddington and Red Hill are great fun, but completely yuppied up. Exxy as hell.
Even West End’s getting yuppies by the barrelful, though at least they kind of pretend to be hip.
Transport to all of these are not great either, but not too bad. Only problem with transport down west way is Coronation Drive, but there’s a busway linking St Lucia Campus with Southbank now which is REALLY FAST, so it might not be too bad now.
Generally, most people are priced out of the market in those areas now - and most of the people who DO live there live there for the area, as you can generally get a nicer house further out for the same money.
‘Nice’ places (irregardless of cost and transport) I’d recommend would be: Hamilton, St Lucia, Taringa, West End, Highgate Hill, Valley/New Farm, Belmont (where I want to live!), Kelvin Grove … but the only ‘practical’ place out of those would be Kelvin Grove, and the transport there’s not too hot either :S