Australian Immigration has provided an interactive guide prior your departure to Australia via YouTube.
It’s available in many languages, which allow you to select one before it started. Enjoy.
URL:
http://www.youtube.com/user/ImmiTV#p/c/F4EFEEE1C3DD40C2/0/AVM0JriJ_p8
Overseas Student Health Cover (OSHC) is intended to assist international students to meet the costs of medical and hospital care that they may need while in Australia. A condition of the Student visa requires that students maintain adequate health insurance for the duration of their visa.
From 1 July 2010 students must obtain OSHC for the proposed duration of their Student visa. Student visa applicants who have obtained OSHC prior to 1 July 2010 but do not lodge an application until after this date will not be asked to obtain further insurance. You will be expected to renew your policy when it expires.
Australian Immigration has provided a free booklet in 37 community languages. It provides useful national, state/territory and local settlement information for migrants, humanitarian entrants, their sponsors and service providers.
Here is the list of the booklet with its language:
Good news for all Australian families that Australian Government will give additional paid parental leave on the top of what company provides for maternity leave for those who have baby on or after 1 January 2011.
It’s a common practice for big company in Australia to give their fulltime employee 3 months paid maternity leave. However
Australian Government will provide additional maximum 18 weeks for paid parental leave, whatever type of employment it is (casual, fulltime, partime etc…)
So, the Paid Parental Leave scheme:
For any further information, you can find out on Family Assistance Office website, which is at http://www.familyassist.gov.au/payments/family-assistance-payments/paid-parental-leave-scheme/index.html
To check whether you’re eligible or not for Paid Parental Leave scheme, you can find out on http://www.familyassist.gov.au/payments/family-assistance-payments/paid-parental-leave-scheme/working-parents—eligibility/
If you’re an Australian resident (holding Permanent Resident or Citizenship) and you’re about to have a baby in Australia, usually you will receive Parent Pack provided by your local hospital from Australian Government after your baby born. It will provide you with information about the family assistance that may be available to you.
If you haven’t given the Parent Pack, you need to remember to ask for your Parent Pack before you leave your local hospital or health care provider following the birth of your child.
The purpose of the pack is to relieve some of the stress of having a new baby by providing you with important information all in one place.
In the Parent Pack, you will find:
Your hospital may also include other information in your Parent Pack.
Please bear in mind that it will take up to 14 days to get Medicare for your baby to be included and it also will take around 14 days to have Birth Certificate ready for your love one. You might need to apply for Australian passport for your baby but you will need Birth Certificate to completed the application. You will also need to completed an online form for Family Assistance and Baby Bonus, however you will also need to show the proof of your residency as well as the Birth Certificate.
Looking from those scenarios above, Birth Certificate is pretty crucial factor to apply some other documents for your baby. If you need to have Medicare a.s.a.p, then you can go to your nearest Medicare office to get paper-based official Medicare card to be shown for the doctor visit.
Like any other countries, Australia has 2 kind of schools. They are public and private schools.
Starting school is an important step in a young child’s life and many parents has asked question ‘Is my child ready for school?” Children develop at different rates and learn skills in different ways.
Parent / caretakers of students starting kindergarten often want further information and advice about whether their child is ready to start school. Parent / caretakers are encouraged to speak to their child’s pre-school or day care teacher, the school principal, school counsellor, school K-2 supervisor and the Kindergarten teacher at school.
Most school have orientation days towards the end of the previous year to welcome children to Kindergarten. Many schools also have transition to Kindergartens programs over several weeks in the second part of the year.
Here is the step-by-step of how to enrol at a Public School:
You can get help to have assistance for enrol a child with a special needs. You will have access to a team of people from your local regional office who will assist you with your child’s enrolment.
A lot of areas especially in Sydney that has many good public school such as Baulkham Hills (Sydney west), Chatswood (Sydney north) etc… Make sure you find the location that good for public school before you moved to Sydney. For more information about Public School, go to http://www.schools.nsw.edu.au
It would be worth to visit an independent Australian owned publishing company based in Sydney since 1986 which specialise for online resource that complements Choosing a School for Your Child magazine. Here is their url: http://www.choosingaschool.com.au/
Private school definitely another option for your child if you can’t find the quality you’re after. Of course they are more expensive compares with public school and usually they provides more facilities such as labs, sports equipment etc. They are non-Government school and most of them have a religious affliction, but some are non-denominational. Many of private schools are combined Primary and Secondary schools. So they are a couple differences between private and public schools. To find out more information about private school such as location and contact number, here is an online resources: http://www.privateschoolsdirectory.com.au/
Here are the areas you can spend your day bushwalking in Sydney. Please be careful when you do bushwalking, make sure you bring compass, light colour jacket (easier to be seen from far in case you get lost), water, chocolate bar / food, lotion, bugs repeller and torch.
Berowra Valley
Sydney Harbour
Botany Bay
Other than those places, Sydney offers a lot of places to have bushwalking such as Blue Mountains, Lane Cove, Norah Head, Ku-Ring-Gai Chase, and Georges River NP or perhaps Manly Dam.
Australian Working Holiday visa is one of the ways to move to Sydney temporarily. This visa scheme gives visa holder the right to work in Australia for up to 24 months. If you’re not sure about moving to Sydney, this visa scheme is one option you might consider of as it would be a great opportunity to spend a lot of time in Australia/Sydney, make lots of local friends or even work in some great industries you would never have imagined into at home.
The agreement is generally reciprocal and always seems to be expanding, so if your country isn’t listed, there is always a chance that a deal might be struck in the future and you will eligible for the visa. Please check with your local Australian Embassy or High Commission to see if your country has been added.
However to get a Working Holiday Visa for Australia is quick, easy and straightforward as long as you are holding passport from any of the following countries listed on below:
Requirement:
Restrictions:
You can get this visa without any help from the agencies. It’s also possible to renew/extend the 12 month visa to 24 months by applying for a second Working Holiday visa. To be eligible for this , you must have worked in regional Australia in one of the following industries:
Good luck! 
Living in Sydney could be really exciting things as there heaps of activities you could do. You can just spend the weekend away in a mountain which offers an excited bushwalking activities as well as many other things.
I will post an article about where you can go on separate article for each activity listed on below.
Here is the list of the activities you would want to do in Sydney on your leasure time:
