Calling Truck Drivers

Gollywobbler · 06-02-2008, 05:12 PM

Hello Truckers!

Please do not get your hopes up at this very early stage, but I have some information which may be of interest to some of you.

There is a recruitment company which is based in SA, though they have clients all over Australia, I am told. Some of their clients are haulage companies which are crying out for truck drivers.

The problem for truck drivers is that you would need RSMS visas in order to obtain PR in Australia, therefore the hauliers have to be bsed in "regional Australia", I gather. The whole of SA is regional, which is good news because it also seems to be the State with the greatest shortage of truck drivers. However, lots of other parts of Oz are also "regional" and I don't imagine that many haulage compamies are actually based in non-regional areas of Oz.

I gather than for RSMS visas, the Company has to nominate the occupation (I think) and this has to be approved by the relevant Regional Certifying Body.

Historically the problem has been that the Trades Unions which represent truck drivers in Oz are large and powerful. They are totally opposed to adding truck driving to the skills lists because they argue that if the pay & benefits packages offered by the hauliers were better than they are, there would be no shortage of home-grown Aussies willing to drive trucks. The unions fear that if hauliers were able to attract foreign truck drivers it would simply push the pay & benefits packages downwards, putting home-grown Aussies out of work because their jobs would be snapped up by foreign drivers willing to accept virtually any lousy pay/benefits deal in order to get PR in Australia.

I think the Unions are probably right. British drivers might not be willing to accept lousy packages, but the market would undoubtedly be flooded by drivers from countries where there is no welfare state,the general standard of living is low and so forth.

Therefore when the recruitment company told me that their haulier clients are not scared of the Unions, I said, "Not so fast! The Unions are definitely blocking these visas in some way, so if they are not nobbling the haulage companies they must be nobbling someone else higher up in the chain that eventually leads to an RSMS visa."

At this stage, I don't know whether the Regional Certifying Bodies have been refusing to approve the nominations because of pressure from the Unions or whether the Unions are able to get at DIAC instead in some way, later on in the chain.

The recruitment agency has Registered Migration Agent as part of the team so I have asked him to try to find out exactly what is causing the seeming deadlock and whereabouts in the chain it is happening. If we can discover what and where the problem actually is, then there is SLIM possibility that it might be possible to resolve whatever the problem turns out to be.

I do not want you to get your hopes up at this stage, because lots of people have tried to get visas for truck drivers and the majority of the attempts seem to have failed as far as I can discover. The odd few seem to have worked but they are definitely a small minority.

At this stage, though, I aim trying to gauge what sort of interest-level there would be from PiO Members, and I am also interested to hear what any of you may have been told about this in the past - whether by haulage companies, Migration Agents, DIAC or anyone else? The more information I can get about this, the better.

I know that Mr Broughton on here has recently obtained a truck-driving licence in Victoria. Does anybody know what happens if the truck has to go inter-State, though? Does the driver need a valid licence in each of the states that the truck will pass through, meaning multiple licences for the long-distance drivers, please?

Mr Broughton explained to his wife Felicity (the Broughtons) what getting the licence entailed and she tried to explain it but I didn't understand it. Her descriptionis Post No. 6 on the thread below:

http://www.pomsinoz.com/forum/jobs-c...v-drivers.html

So at this stage I am really looking for (a) interest and (b) feedback, please.

Also, would people be willing to consider SA if that is where the possible jobs turn out to be based?

Many thanks

Gill

notanotherone · 07-02-2008, 01:23 AM

hi gill thats sounds a little more promising for us hgv drivers,i'm def up for SA as thats where i wanted to go anyway, i know what your saying about other countries accepting any package thats offered to them as we are inundated with polish drivers here in the uk.
Keep us posted gill cos as usual any info about this is bound to encourage us drivers not to give up at the first hurdle.I'm currenlt waiting on a call from GO MATILDA agency to tell me if its worth going down a different route, or ya never know they might have some new info! cheers mate......jason

roan · 07-02-2008, 01:53 PM

Hi Gill,

I have read your post with great interest as we have been looking into this for a while. Any information at all would be really helpful! Other half is a HGV driver & apart from the student visa route this is our only option. I have been in touch with an agent only last week who said he can help (Perth area).

I am waiting to hear back from him as we speak (he did say it is not an easy one).

Many thanks & thanking you in anticipation.

Romy

emmvee · 08-02-2008, 04:02 PM

Hi Gollywobbler

I am looking to get over to Oz on a 457 as a hgv driver. I'm quite willing to go anywhere,
Very interested.

Thanx for the detailed info in your post

Gary and Bev · 08-02-2008, 07:26 PM

20 years pounding the roads all over europe looking for better life will it be the same old .... in Aus wot about $ eaning 26K could it be better in AUS

MACDONALDO67 · 13-02-2008, 12:41 AM

I have a HGV Licence until 2012 but have not driven HGV for 20 years. A suitable refresher course would put me back in the swing of things.

I have this week written to BIS Inductrial, Cockburn site, Perth, Bunbury (email) but have received no reply. That was a question to a basic query.

If I don't gt anything with the railways then HGV, or HC / Hm as it is known in Australia, West side, will do nicely.

Pay varies from $19 to $26 n hour. I am a good driver !

(And it's also a good job to see a bit of the area you live in as well. Seeing whilst driving)

So anyway I can get out of the Cesspit of Europe and 457 visa help will be nice.

Jennifer Shields · 14-02-2008, 07:41 PM

Hi All truckies,sorry to upset you but no matter what experiance you have you will need to resit your H.G.V in Oz and depending where you live on what runs you do is which state licence you get.
Good luck.

lynneflinn · 12-03-2008, 07:56 PM

Gill

my husband is a fuel tanker driver (hgv1) and we are looking to go to Adelaide SA - what do you think the chances are? who is the haulage company that you are refering to and how do you know all this info? We are going to a job expo in Leeds in April and hope this might be usefull to us and we are waiting for a call from Go Matilda too!!! Can you suggest any other info or sites to help us get to OZ

many thanks
Flinny

Gollywobbler · 12-03-2008, 09:00 PM

Hello Flinny

Welcome to Poms in Oz.

This thread started when a recruitment agency based in Adelaide put a couple of posts on PiO about other things, but when I looked at their website it says they are also looking for truck drivers.

So I asked the Agency whether their haulier clients would be willing to sponsor people for visas because if so, there would be no shortage of British candidates for the jobs.

The recruitment lass was very enthusiastic but the company also has a Registered Migration Agent in tow. I inisted that we got some advice from him before asking truckers to submit CVs to the recruitment lady.

The RMA was deeply pessimistic. He says that loads of home-grown Ozzies have HGV licences but they won't apply for the jobs because the pay & perks package is not attractive, the inter-state drivers work immensely long hours, are away from their families a lot and so forth.

His feeling was that DIAC would not allow hauliers to sponsor HGV drivers when there are so many Ozzie drivers. (The numbers of Ozzie with licences - including migrant Permanent Residents - is easily proven via Department of Transport figures or something similar, apparently.) Matters are not helped by the Unions who represent the Ozzie drivers because they are adamant that opening the doors to foreign drivers would make the whole game even worse than it allegedly already is.

Every year, DIAC and the Unions have a pow-wow about the question of whether to add HGV drivers to the list of recognised skills. I think the last series of meetings was either in December 2007 or January 2008 and the talks may still be on-going - I don't know.

I did a bit of research into this, as follows:

Tell Google UK to find Google Australia.
Tell Google Australia to confine itself to Australian webpages only
I think I told it something like Truck drivers + Visas - just play with it, I suggest.

I came across a couple of pdf files which were evidently reports prepared by one of the unions for submission to somebody in the Government (not necessarily DIAC.) They may have used extreme examples but some of the drivers' lives really did sound quite grim.

Also via Google Australia it should be possible to find out about HGV licencing in the different states, what is needed if the driver will be going inter-state and so on.

Best wishes

Gill

lynneflinn · 13-03-2008, 10:07 PM

Hi Gill
thanks alot for the info-Ive been doing some digging too.Have a look at www.ministers.sa.gov.au/news and read the report. I didn't hold out much hope before but this looks a bit promising. Also Gill have you heard the rumour that BHP Billiton is supposed to be opening a mine in Adelaide and needing 10,000 truckers. That might be of interest to Jason as he wants SA as well.

thanks
Flinny