Tapalinga

Where to start that is the question, well, here goes. Migrated to oz just over 1 year now, arrived 19/08/02. Landed in Brisbane airport at 5.30am to be met by a penpal i got to know over the internet. Felt like i had just been dropped on Mars!!! yes beam me up scotty, i want to go back now, thats good seen enough. No we didn't go (still here for now). After 2 weeks of sunning ourselfs up on the sunshine coast it was down to looking for a home, that was the easy bit, managed to find a nice place for rental down on the south side (wynnum way). Next came work, are you all sitting quite comfortabley, then i shall begin. For migration purposes my skills were assessed by TRA and that all went well, i was told that once i arrived in oz that i had to go to TRA and get a Trade certificate which would enable me to get a licence for my skills (Mechanical & A/C plumber). Off i went to TRA, sorry sir but those skills are not recognised in Qld, so we can't give you a trade certificate, but if i can't have a trade certificate i can't get my restricted electrical licence which means i can't get a job. Well, why don't you do an apprentiship or even better move to NSW where your skills are recognised. To cut a long story short i still haven't got my licence, i have managed to get a Gas fitters licence doing work that i was doing about 20yrs ago. I have had 3 jobs in the last year and have just lost another one. I am not going to give up on getting my restricted electrical licence so i have now written to the Premier of Brisbane (Mr P Beattie) fingers crossed this may wake up these ozzies to the real world, they are living in the past. If there are any other poor souls out there who have had similar problems with the licencing laws of Qlds please get intouch.

Huffy

Same here
arrived may 2003, telephone tech need licence
trade cert best they can give me allows me to put cable in houses
as for licence I would then have to work supervised for 6 months'
anyone know a firm willing to pay me to wander around for 6 months with one
of their guys knowing very well as soon as licence was in hand I would be
legging it for job with real money.
Queensland is mad and need to look at what they are doing

Al

Tapalinga <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
    > Where to start that is the question, well, here goes. Migrated to oz
    > just over 1 year now, arrived 19/08/02. Landed in Brisbane airport at
    > 5.30am to be met by a penpal i got to know over the internet. Felt like
    > i had just been dropped on Mars!!! yes beam me up scotty, i want to go
    > back now, thats good seen enough. No we didn't go (still here for now).
    > After 2 weeks of sunning ourselfs up on the sunshine coast it was down
    > to looking for a home, that was the easy bit, managed to find a nice
    > place for rental down on the south side (wynnum way). Next came work,
    > are you all sitting quite comfortabley, then i shall begin. For
    > migration purposes my skills were assessed by TRA and that all went
    > well, i was told that once i arrived in oz that i had to go to TRA and
    > get a Trade certificate which would enable me to get a licence for my
    > skills (Mechanical & A/C plumber). Off i went to TRA, sorry sir but
    > those skills are not recognised in Qld, so we can't give you a trade
    > certificate, but if i can't have a trade certificate i can't get my
    > restricted electrical licence which means i can't get a job. Well, why
    > don't you do an apprentiship or even better move to NSW where your
    > skills are recognised. To cut a long story short i still haven't got my
    > licence, i have managed to get a Gas fitters licence doing work that i
    > was doing about 20yrs ago. I have had 3 jobs in the last year and have
    > just lost another one. I am not going to give up on getting my
    > restricted electrical licence so i have now written to the Premier of
    > Brisbane (Mr P Beattie) fingers crossed this may wake up these ozzies to
    > the real world, they are living in the past. If there are any other
    > poor souls out there who have had similar problems with the licencing
    > laws of Qlds please get intouch.
    > --
    > Posted via http://britishexpats.com

Rossi

O.K. guys don't shoot the messenger alright !!
From the research that I have done before I move over to Australia, I have found that some states will give recognition of your skills obtained in the UK (Victoria springs to mind as one of them). Would it not have been possible to move to that state, obtain your license and then move to where you really want to be using the interstate transferral of the license?

Huffy

It is a very big move to come over here.
As we have 4 children and one on the way we did not have the luxury of being
able to move about like that.
Anyway the information I recieved was that I could walk into the TRA office
in Brisbane and walk out with trade cert.
Information is usually taken as fact so we came here.

another thing is the matter of financial assistance. We are all informed
that we cannot get anything for 2 years.
Wrong! We get family assistance which is the Oz equivilent of family
allowance in UK but is means tested and more like Family Credit. We have 4
kids and get $3650 a week. This is on top of my $550 wages. We had to live
on the family assistance for 4 weeks at one point and where glad of it.

Back to the trade cert...in my case I have been lucky and am on my second
job since arriving. The first was a gap filler but I have now started a new
job which is my trade as a telephone tech. This I am able to do without
Trade cert because my new employer took me on because of my experience and
references from UK.

Good luck to everyone still in the process and don't be disheartened. We
arrived with $12000 and no belongings and have been here 4 months and are
haveing a great time and no regrets.

Al;