My first step..migrating from Toronto to Melbourne or Sydney

My wife and myself are planning to move to Australia. I am Canadian Citizen and my wife is a Permanant Resident(her passport is Indian). What would be our 1st step in starting this process?
I have my cousin in Vic and my wife has her sister in Sydney. We want to see if we qualify by ourselves before involving family.

Any thoughts who we should contact, what we should read etc.

Thank you so much.

Need a fosters now.

Regarding the couple who wants to move to Australia. I'm in the same position. I lived and worked in San Diego for 10 years and terribly miss the year round sunshine. I was in Sweden for 2 years following and have since returned to Toronto. I'm a British and Canadian citizen with a U.S green card. My husband is a permanent resident of Canada with a Swedish passport. If you find anything worthwhile that can aid in my quest for Australia--please share. Looks like we are in a similar position, and if you're in Toronto--then perhaps you can share your insight over coffee. Don't worry this is a legit post. He's a Business Manager and I'm a former TV news reporter, together we have a 3 year old son.

Hi there Jasbir, guess you are the only one who responded to my post! I am looking at Australian Immigration lawyers in Toronto who can give us a start.some sort of headway.

Do you have msn? probably we can chat there as well?

First I would check the Australian Immigration website at www.immi.gov.au
I don't know your if you qualify as a skilled worker etc. but there you can check all the options. Ultimately if nothing suits your situation you could always have your/her family sponsor you.
Hope that helps! Good luck.

I wouldn't bother with immigration laywers. If you want to come quickly, get sponsored, Australia is pushing section 457 visas for temporary skilled workers. Most big companies in Sydney are using that to sponsor overseas workers as there is a big skill shortage here.

You can go through full skilled immigration and you'll find all that info on the Australian Immigration website.

Sorry for my delayed response(work/travel sucks).

Humm I heard the same thing misterbig re: 457 visas. Thanks for the update cherieboberry1(love the handle).

Do you think they give preference for Canadians when applying for Immigration to Oz?

Yes, I believe processing for similar Commonwealth is expedited.

Sounds good.sometimes I wonder how easy it is to just print an application, send the $$$ and wait for the PR card to come. Its cool that its part of the commonwealth

British Commonwealth people do NOT get any specific preference for Australia immigration.

However, Canada is classified as a "low-risk" country (there are 29 of them I think) which does expedite things by a few months (less security checks etc). (being low-risk has nothing to do with commonwealth, other nations on this list includes USA, Japan, and much of western Europe). Because your wife is from India, that could slow things down as it isn't on the "low-risk" list. If you haven't been a Canadian citizen for at least 10 years yourself, that may also slow things down as background checks etc. will be more difficult.

For skilled immigration points, because Canada is also classified as a major English-speaking nation (others are USA, UK, Ireland, and New Zealand), Canadians also get an automatic 15 points for English language ability with no evidence required. (If you need 20 points for this category though if you're short a few of what you need for the visa, you'll still need to take an exam).

You should also get used to that when Australians refer to the "Commonwealth" as part of their vocabulary, they're talking about Australia itself and it's federal government (the "Commonwealth of Australia" and "The Commonwealth Government"), not the British Commonwealth.

The forms are not difficult but tedious to fill out. If there's anything missing you have to wait for immigration to write to you . something is always missing