STEVE&TERRI

Can someone please help my husband has been filling out some forms ,one question asked is ,Do you hold a trade licensing and /or registration number. He has City and Guilds ,and also holds a CSCS card are these what they are asking for? He is a bricklayer by trade.

cresta57

I think they would be referring to a licencing number here in Australia. However I'm sure I put down the number on the CSCS card [CITB reg number]when I filled in the forms.
Good luck

sstruthers30

I am shortly going to be asking the same questions when my bricklayer boyfriend arrives. What answers did you end up putting?

Many thanks

Sam

STEVE&TERRI

HI Sam we did put the number of his CSCS card down ,we were not sure what to put ,but did not want it to be sent back to us. Good luck

lee/jane

Hi

My husbands a painter and decorator. In Australia to work self employed or to start your own business you have to have a trade license number, so thats why it's on their forms. What we put down on that, not wanting to leave it blank, the number you get on the card you must have to pay your own tax. I don't know if all trades have it, but my husband said, that in the building trade most people have these credit size cards with your photo on. These cards have a number on, and that is what we used. I think we put self employed tax number in brackets next to it. It worked for us, as we are off in August.

Jane

pete hoy

if you want to work on site here you,ll need a blue card cost $80/$95 dollars for a four hour safety induction course it,s a piece of p_ _ _ they tell you the answers .We arrived on the gold coast 4 weeks ago , i,m a chippy went for an interview today fitting & making kitchens the guy offered me $22 an hour which is roughly £8 an hour apparently you can get $17.50 an hour stacking shelves in the supermarket.By the way if you want to work for yourself you need a BSA licence and insurance from what i,ve heard the licence costs around $400 dollars & the insurance is about $1000 i,m only going on hearsay so don,t quote me on that. To obtain a licence you,ll need to contact Queensland Master Builders. P.S. HOPE THIS GUY RINGS BACK AND ASK,S ME TO START SO I CAN TELL WHERE TO SHOVE IT..LOL in

paulf

Mate! NZ is worse still, I got offered $12 an hour to service gas appliances!
thats about £4.50 an hour and would,nt even cover house rental.

cresta57

I'm a tiler here in Qld, Deb & I are registered as a family partnership with the ATO. We work for a few different builders doing both high and low set new builds plus a few private jobs. The licencing here is a bloody nightmare it takes ages for anything to happen and without it work is harder to find. If we'd lived in Brisbane or down the coast a bit maybe it would have been easier to find work with a larger company and have worked under their licence. Up here in "Hicksville" there are no large companies so it wasn't an option. I forget the actual cost for starting off the assessment of my qualifications I think it was around $300. I then waited months for the next stage as I needed to be assessed "onsite" and there is only one tiling assessor between Bundaberg and Tweed Heads he lives on the gold coast and is a really helpful bloke. After positive assessment by him $115 I could then do the next stage which was the 3 day business course that was just over $300 and is held over a weekend finishing Monday evening. Once you've had your trade skills assessed had a practical assessment and done the three day business course you can then apply for the BSA licence. This costs $405 for the first year and just over a hundred for subsequent years.
Armed with your trade contractors licence you then only need public liability insurance $1000 per annum, Workers Comp Insurance if you employ someone. Some companies also insist on you having personal injury & sickness insurance cover before you can subcontract to them. You'll also need your blue card before your allowed onsite, this cost's between $60 and $100 bucks
All up you need to earn a few dollars before you get a cheque for yourself, then if you want to bank it you'll need to pay $107 for a certificate of the registration of a business. That's if you added your trade to the end of your name.
At the time waiting was really stressful I was pretty wound up about it. Now it's all over I don't regret the move at all I'm happy chilled out and looking forward to the builders starting our own house.
Here's an older post:
http://britishexpats.com/forum/showt...cence+cresta57

jad n rich

$22 IS the award wage for the job, whats it in the UK now??

Only way to make money in trades here is to go out on your own and get a license etc start looking into it now it can take 8/9 months for some trades, assuming you are fully qualified in the first place. Main drawback of going it alone is continuity of work.

cresta57

Hey Rich,
Did you ever do the testing and tagging course??
Only asking as my plumber mate just did it at the Maryboro' Tafe. It cost him $200+ bucks and he can only test his own tools then only with a machine costing anything from a $1000 to $6000 that needs to be sent away for specialist testing itself every 6 months
Seems like there's no cheap option on the test & tag to me

jad n rich

Hes offline now taken the kids out as its mothers day He did a course at the University at buderim and it cost about $300 for the one day course, then he had to buy the kit which was about $800, but he got discount on both as he belongs to the master builders association.

He tests all the tools 3 monthly but I will have to ask about the 6 month testing of the testing equipment business. But I can imagine the way things are here that would be right.

cresta57

Cheers for the quick reply, maybe it is worth considering then, last 18 months test & tag must have been close to the cost of the course & kit.
Sean

pete hoy

hi jad n rich i was earning £15 an hour plus petrol money that seems about average wage at the moment. i,m going to try some of these boat building firms fitting fixtures & fittings or cabinet work and just pick up a wage just to see how it goes until i make some contacts here.

sstruthers30

I am Australian and I think the situation is becoming ridiculous for trades. Apparently they are crying out for tradespersons but don't seem to want to pay them a decent wage and then complicate everything by making them apply for thousands of licences etc.

Philip who is a bricklayer was working in Sydney before the Olympics and the pay and jobs were great but after that everything seemed to die so we went back to the UK. I have come back to get us set up but I am still trying to convince him to come out to Australia but the money and all the new regulations seem such a headache compared to the UK. This is not even to mention the whole ABN/self employed tax paying system which apparently is quoted as being the most difficult in the world. I am really tempted to go back to the UK and stay there!