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Ju-Wayne, Theatre Nurse

My name is Ju-Wayne. I'm a registered nurse and I work at the operating theatres.

I had a few years experience in the Philippines prior to moving to New Zealand, and worked there for seven years in the same field but we wanted more adventure, so it just made sense to move to Victoria.

My colleagues at work - we are diverse, everyone has something to offer professionally and socially. There's never a dull moment at work. From surgeons or colleagues, nurses and our techs, it has been really supportive and it's just fun to be at work.

Our work-life balance here in Victoria is better because of the work culture that we have, wherein our manager is really supportive with our schedule requests.

When the time comes for play, we play big - we travel and we do mini road trips here and there. So for me that's a big tick for flexibility. We've been chasing waterfalls, lighthouses; there's lots of theatre. You just choose where you want to go and Melbourne gives that variety for us. On a Friday night we're already asking ourselves ‘what are we gonna do tomorrow?’ because there's so much to offer.

Having made the decision of moving to Melbourne is a no-brainer and we love it.

Vicky, Mental Health Nurse Manager

My name’s Vicky Millward, and I'm a registered psychiatric nurse, and I've been working in Victoria for the last five and a half years.

So, I moved here with my wife and my two children. The service that I work for is quite unique in Victoria: we provide psychosocial rehab for clients that have an intellectual disability. I love my unit. I am very passionate about the care that we provide, and it gets me up every morning and looking forward to going to work.

In the UK, we really struggled to get out of the rental market, which we'd been in since we'd first moved into a home together. Here, we've managed to buy our own house and build our own house, which was really exciting for us. It also was very helpful that my wages were a lot more in Australia, which made a massive difference.

My work/life balance is so much better here - the weather is so much nicer here, so it's a lot easier for us to be outside. In the UK, I was working long days, which were 12-hour-plus days. Whereas here we work shorter shifts, which means I can be at a home in either the morning to get my children ready for school, or I can be at home in the evenings to get them ready for bed. My kids, they love life here. They have Australian accents now, they play Aussie sports, and they are very settled in school.

Seven years on, I'm so glad that we took a chance to just move over to Australia. We are so settled, and so happy here.

Yeah, I couldn't have asked for anything more.

Sreyus, Nursing Unit Manager

My name is Sreyus Sreedhar. My home country is India. Before moving, my world was really small. I lived with my parents all my life until I was 20 and I never lived outside my house for more than two or three days.

I currently work as a unit manager in one of busiest emergency departments in Melbourne. I have about 340 staff who report to me directly and we work in a very busy environment and you know, I love my job.

When you come to work in the morning you open the windows and you see the beach and if you're really early it's beautiful and you can see the sunlight gushing through. So, that gives you a lot of energy, and you know, passion and compassion to work for the community.

If I was somewhere else other than Victoria, I don't think my advancement will be this quick. The support system is so concrete and if you have the right people around you and the right support around you, the advancement will be very fast.

As a family we do go out a lot. We like to travel on the weekends and I have an extended family here so every weekend is about a family get together celebration. The family quality time that I have, I think, you know, talking to my friends who work in other places, you know, it's very different.

And when I tell them that I have this much time with my family every week I think they get a little bit jealous.