Nursing in Australia

Recently the idea of moving to Australia has come across my mins. I did read a lot of the information in the sticky but I have a few questions. I would like to live in sydney, I have read other people's opinions on this board about sydney..but studied abroad during my first degree in australia (way up at james cook university in townsville) and am familiar with many of the bigger cities (except for perth and adelaide). I am a big city kind of person, but where as nurses in some of the major cities in the US, eg NY and san fran are paid in the mid sixites to low seventies a year (starting), sydney seems to pay really low wages and considering how much of your salary is taken out in taxes..how can you afford to live? Is there a difference in salary between private and public hospitals? Is there a lot of overtime and do you get paid time and a half or more like in the US? How can one afford a house? Is there some sort of tax break for home ownership?

I looked up the salaries for other professions and even lawyers and a lot of IT people start out with salaries in the high thirties to the mid fourties...where as a lawyer in the US who goes corporate can start out making 120,000 (not all, but some)...I guess what I am getting at is that the majority of salaries seem low to me for a city as big and expensive as sydney. And if at 62,000 47% of your salary is going to taxes, how can you survive?! Correct me if I am wrong on any of these statistics.