Sarpaul

Lovey & Wife

You are a citizen which makes it much easier for you to apply from here (I won't ask the silly question of why on earth you came here!). With the police not being a required skill in OZ it is harder for the average Police Constable to achive the required points. Especially as the points required for entry are to be increased. Unless of course you are married to someone with a required profession. Anyone any suggestions how to get a visa with slightly below points ? Even with My mother and sister out in Perth I'm struggling.

Lee&Clare

Hi everyone, good to see there is a site that like minded people can share their struggles. I am a serving Sergeant in the Met with 7 years service. We are just about to start appying for thr Queensland police, I am lucky in the fact my other half is from Brisbane and I have just got My P/R this has taken about 2 years.
We are hoping to get out to Brisbane with our two young kids early next year, if anyone else is in the same boat it would be good to share any info.

HugoB

Welcome Lee&Clare

Well done on your PR. I take it you are applying to Qsld Police on the PACE program? Best of luck to you. We have a scouting trip in April to ask our questions. Have you manged to get over to Qsld and ask about PACE in person?

I am a Met PC with 6 yrs service. So I am very keen to get my prior police service recognised, Im not getting any younger.

Regards

Mr & Mrs Hugo B
(Rory & Kate)

Lee&Clare

Hi, I was out last year and managed to do a L/T with the Brisbane police, I want to get on the Pace course and the feed back I have had from the recruitmet office has been very positive. I wait to see what happens once my application goes in.
It would be good to here any feedback from your trip in April,
Good Luck

Lee (WW)!!

Lee&Clare

Hi all,
Just received a reply from Juanita Mills at the Qld recruiting office. She appears very helpful and said there are PACE courses starting in oct 05 and Feb and June 06. What seemed good news was she said if you applied but all the checks and bits had not been completed they could still arrange an interview if you happened to be in OZ. Your acceptance would then depend on your checks coming back as ok.
I intend applying ASAP and if i get through the paper sift will hopefuly try to arrange my intrview at Christmas.
I will keep this updated with anything that could be of use if you are thinking of applying.
Anyone know of any where in Surrey that you can do your bronze medallion swimming cert.
Cheers
Lee

lovey and wife

Hi all,
By way of update I managed to get the local life guards (swimming not army) here in Hastings to do me a crash course for the bonze medallion so hopefully (if I dont drown) will have it shortly. I am off to Brisbane for ten days next week and have my PACE interview on the 11th and medical on the 14th so if all goes well will hope to be on the June 13th intake. I will be sure to let you all know how the interview goes.
Lovey

Sarpaul,

I'm sorry mate I dont know how else you can get your points up to get your visa, I have been looking as I get asked this a lot at work but as yet no answer, probobly just as well as my local nick would be deserted if I found the answer, best of luck though.

HugoB

Good one!

Lee, thanks again for the info, this thread is turning into a little goldmine!

Which checks was she referring to? Does she mean they would be prepared to give accept applications and give interviews before we got our PR?

I have a mate here at PL who swims for the Met. He seems to know where one could do a crash course (4 days??) and get the bronze life saving.

On another note, do you know if they accept the Job First Aid at WorK course, run by the St Johns Ambulance over 5 days?

Regards

Rory

HugoB

Best of luck to you, I'm sure you'll do well! Please keep us posted!

Rory

NAC

Hi everyone, good to see lots of others in similar situation. We have lodged our Skilled Independent Visa and hope to have it by end of April. Our plan was to apply for PACE and then visit in June for Interview etc. We would hope to be out for the October course, all going well, but don't know if this is a realistic timescale or not?? Neil is doing his Bronze Medallion just now but what I would say is that after receiving info from someone who did the PACE course 18 months ago it appears that you do need to have your Certificate validated in Australia. Apparently the Australian Bronze level includes a 400m swim which is not included in the UK so it may be worth asking for this to be added to your test as a one off if the instructors are ok with it. Neil's instructors were fine with this and will add it to his certificate.
It's great that this thread is getting more active and we look forward to hearing about all your helpful tips in the future!!
Carolyn

galenco

When I was speaking to Juanita last year she said that the UK Bronze medallion was fine as long as it included "Respond to Aquatic Emergency using Basic Water Rescue Techniques" and "Provide Emergency Care".
She also staed that the HSE First Aid would be accepted.

You do need to have your Visa before you apply for the Police.
We should be getting ours through in a couple of weeks, but it has taken since January 2004.
We are going back out in April, this time spending all of our time in Perth. I'm waiting for the visa so I can put my application for WAP in, and then I'll ask for an assesment whilst I'm there.

Lee&Clare

Hi Rory,

Sorry mate for any confusion, you do need your P/R prior to application. The checks are just normal contacting you HR department for sickness and complaints and ref's from your line managers.
Not sure about the first aid at work ticket! I hope so because i am booked in for one soon.
Thanks for the info on swimming, I'm not a bad swimmer but I think I need to do a full course and a bit of practice as I've never done any of this life saving stuff.
cheers
Lee..

lovey and wife

There is a lot of confusion with regards to certificates which will be accepted, from what I see it seems that the RLSS Brone medallion from the UK is fine, although I appreciate that it differs in content from the Oz one. I also checked with Juanita about this and to clarify I have checked the QLD Police web site which says;

"A Royal Life Saving Bronze Medallion must be obtained from the Royal Life Saving Society or from an accredited and qualified instructor. This qualification must include the following competencies:

PUA EME 001A (provide emergency care); and
SRC AQU 003A (respond to aquatic emergency using basic water rescue techniques).
This certificate is valid for one year only and must be current for the duration of recruit training".

I have to admit that the naming is slightly different on my UK award books but seem to amount to the same thing and they dont specify Australian.

As for the HSE certificate I asked her the same thing last week and she wasn't quite sure however she has asked me to bring it along to the interview anyway, but I got the feeling that it was fine and certainly fits the criteria, although I am probobly going to have to redo my CPR as it was two years ago now which seems odd as I am doing it for my bronze medallion!

All the best to all
Lovey

A&M

Hi Jason

My husband and I used a Migration Consultant last year and he advised us that with any new qualification you need to show two years work experience in that field. So if you're relying on your wife's qualification for skilled migration, a migration consultant can still process you application but they will slow it down over two years to allow your wife to build up her experience.

Migration Consultants are costly - around £5,000 + but it means all the paper work is taken care of and they have a list of criteria (from DIMIA)to fulfill and can be ticking the boxes over two years. This information was current as of September last year. Try to get to a Migration Seminar at Australia House - the Migration Consultant will offer you a 5-10 minute FREE consultation to go over your qualifications, experience etc ... so take everything with you. They can make a very quick assessment if you know where you want to go.

It's certainly worth attending and taking the day off work for. Check out the website for the Australian High Commission. All the visa information is on line, including costs for lodging your visa (£500 approx), certification and other documents required, processing times and you can also evaluate your points using an online form.

Good luck - hope the info helps.

Ang

lovey and wife

Well all I am back from Brisbane, Interview and medicals are over and now I'm waiting for a response. The interview was at Headquarters (huge building), and was pretty relaxed, the interviewers were really friendly and after looking at my resume spent about 30-40 minutes firing questions at me about my Police expierience in the UK. There were no real low ballers just scenarios and questions like 'Have you ever had a female supervisor', 'How do you get along with people from different backgrounds', al pretty standard stuff.
Medicals were no problem either just a few 'Touch your toes' from the FMO.
I have clarified with the recruiting Sgt. a couple of points in relation to first aid etc.
They will only accept a first aid certificate issued by the named organisations, ie Red Cross, St Johns, so if like me you have done the HSE certificate in force (which is written by St. Johns) but your certificate doesent mention them then you need to get a short letter from St Johns saying that they have designed the course and that it is equvillent to the senior first aid.
They have stated that they will accept the Bronze medallion if it is issued by the Royal Life Saving Society. No mention was made to me of any extra elements and dont even think about trying to bluff it as they apparently have three people on disciplinry because they have claimed the certificate and when they have gone to do their swim at the college (you do the one apparently) it has turned out that they cannot swim a stroke!
Anyway thats about it just need to hold my breath for a bit now until I find out wether they want me or not.
Hope this all helps,
Jamie

NAC

Hi Jamie, thanks so much for the feedback. Just a few questions!!
1. Any idea how long you will have to wait for a result?
2. Did you send over your application prior to going and if so did they contact your referees prior to interview?
3. Did they ask you where you would like to be posted?
4. If successful (as I'm sure you will be!!) will you be able to start in June?
Hope you don't mind all these questions! We are just waiting for our PR visa - hopefully here in the next few weeks. Hubby is hoping to get application form in as soon as it's here and go over for interview in June - then hoping to go out for October intake to PACE.
Wishing you all the best - keep us posted!
Carolyn and Neil