colinmaclec

Hi

 

I'm the secondary applicant on a perm resident visa ( Perth). I came over for a week in June and applied for an artc ( you need your passport stamped to apply). I used a friends address and booked myself on the 2 week etl course. The upshot of that is I got my a grade 3 weeks after arrival. I've now been here 5 weeks and I start work on Monday.

If you are a spark and you have the the option go as a secondary applicant as it bypasses the bullshit.

This is exactly my point. This system is so dumb you couldn't make it up. If you were the main applicant you would have went through all the shite. But because you are not you get the easy route!! Its like it punishes the people who have to prove their skills and work experience to get into the country. You sit a test (which is easy but i did see people resiting when i done it) and give 10 years work experience to prove you are what they want then you become an apprentice for a year! But hey if you rock up as a spouse or tourist here have a license LOL!

Thanks for the reply.

Will being on a WHV make it more difficult to find work as a sparks?

No all the companies here seem to bull full of lads on WHV it makes it easier as i said before you get a license easier!

If we liked it over there and wanted to stay, would we be able to apply for PR in Oz or would we have to come home first?

You can apply onshore

Does the WHV mean we can't work for the same employer for more than six months?

Yes

Would it help my case getting a PR if we were prepared to work outside of the big cities, at least until we got PR.

You could get a regional visa i have no idea how that works and you will find it hard to get sparky work i would think

When I get PR is it then just a case of transferring my A licence that I got with my WHV or do I have to go through the whole process again?

Yes you would still have a license but you would have to do vetassess and the gap training

Sorry for all of the questions. My mind is boggled with all of this! Thanks again.

Hope that helps

Yeah , it's a joke !!! sparks on the WHV can apply to TRA then sit a 1 week course at the CET then a week at their house or whatever , then apply for their A grade licence .

why is it one rule for one and one rule for another !

 

I have already sat Vetasess exam , now I have to sit 2 week course which will be 5 months after arriving here in Perth , train for another year , then sit another exam . Total 3 weeks off my work . I am having to use my holidays to go to college , so no holidays this year , well not that we could afford it anyways lol....

It's not that , it's the feeling of feeling inadequate like an apprentice . I'm 37 next week and having someone shouting at me every day is peeing me off BIG style !!!

 

keep going to the beach , looking at the water , enjoying the time there to tell myself "short term sacrifice , long term gain " but in all honesty it's hard when your in the thick of it not seeing the woods for the trees ... ;-)

Once you go to college you can backdate your logbook to when you started working so there's a plus for you! They tell us that we have to do this gap training so we have our oz qualification and that the CET 1 week no one can fail mickey mouse course does not it just gives you a license to work. But i don't see why we cant be given the license the same as WHV's ( who are younger and less experienced and generally not looking for long term work or have families to support!!) and have it revoked if we don't complete the gap training. Would make life much easier for us and i don't see why we should be at a disadvantage applying for jobs against people on tourist visas!!!!!!

Hi,

Myself and my wife have recently been contemplating a permanent move to Australia. I've been horrified to read how difficult this move seems to be. Is New Zealand any easier?

I am a fully qualified electrician, having served my four year apprenticeship here in Ireland. I have one year's work experience in addition to this.

What are my best visa and licence options? How long can I expect this to take and how much can I expect this to cost? Our preferred locations, in order, are Brisbane, Melbourne, Adelaide & Perth.

I naively thought Australia was crying out for sparks and all I'd have to do was apply for a visa, maybe do a course for a couple of weeks, pass an exam, and work away. I'm shocked by what I've read. Please tell me it isn't so bad!!

My wife qualified as a Primary School Teacher in Ireland last year and is currently working as a teacher for her DIP/probation year. Is there any advantage to my prospects in naming her as the main applicant? I have heard that Primary Teachers are not on the shortage list but that Early Childhood Education is and she might qualify to teach that.

Any advice would be really appreciated. Feel absolutely lost now!

You guys would be best going on a holiday visa as i don't think either of you will qualify for PR due to lack of work experience. But as you hear on here a holiday visa means easy route for license but only in WA and SA as far as i am aware. So cheap easy option is WHV. If you like it then apply for PR or find a sponsor

Well your lucky you are in SA as i believe you can do a 1 week course to get your license and thats it but it wont be allowed to transfer to another state until you have held it for over a year. I am in WA and none of my previous qualifications count for ****! I have to fill a log book for a year and am sent homework and then finish off by doing the ozzie trade test. I have just started the homework today and its pretty time consuming and i guess we are basically doing all the principle part of the apprenticeship by distance learning and have to pass at 80%.

Hi,

I've just landed and are trying find my way through the Australian way.. I visited Adelaide 4 years ago and was told by a techincal adviser for a government body which excapes me now, and now his card is mmmm 8 weeks away as it got put in to shipping at the last minute. that he would give me a restricted licence there and then, I would just be required to sit the regs test..to get a A licence.

Does anyone have experience of what may be required for a NICEIC approved contractor qualified in my own right /principal duty holder, qualifing supervisor., for the past 5years.

Do I really have to "START ALL OVER?"

Any assistance would be appreciated... please email me trimoto@aol.com

It depends on which visa you have and if your the main applicant, and which state you are in

Hi my husband has his vetassess practical demonstration next week. We were wondering if any one can help that has taken the test recently - he has the lists of what the areas covered in the written exam might be but really needs to know how difficult the questions will be and the format of them. Does anyone have any sample questions or advice? it would be much appreciated.

nothing to worry about tbh as long as you are a real sparky. The hardest part is probably the theory section as most sparks wont have used the formulas since college but it really is just basic power calcs and questions about series and parallel resistors. They do seem to love working out resistance values here for classroom work dunno why as your average aussie spark couldnt tell you what voltage they use let alone the resistance on the circuit!

Looks like the missus will have to get a job then. If I got $35 I would be happy, I thought it would be less than that......

LOL i used to think like you until i arrived here...................

You will be lucky to get $35 an hr while you do gap training.

I know, that's what I've been thinking too. When I go back it will take me a couple of weeks to start thinking and installing properly. Just got over a year to go until my standards rise again when i get back to uk

Can i ask why you are going back? And why wait a year?

Never mind the spanner slipping what about our standards slipping!

Yeah i think those of us arriving now have missed the boat so to speak and we are open to being exploited until we get our licenses. I have went from supervising and running projects to being told to do work to a lower standard, being taught how to do 1 way and 2 way lighting at college (yes really!) and regarded as lower than a young lad just finished his apprenticeship when applying for jobs.

An update for all my fellow second rate UK sparks( well according to Australia we must be!). Today i received my first batch of homework from the college i attended. A 50 or so page document with questions to be answered and returned. When this is completed we then get sent a project to do at home as well. This is ridiculous if you ask me. Its hard enough trying to get settled in to a new country and deal with your family, find a decent job and somewhere to live without having to do this and fill a log book as well. I wanted to emigrate for a better life not to be treated like this.

Hiya everyone,

 

Does anyone know when the 2 week ARTC courses are running January or the closest ones to january in WA, we arrive on the 27th of December so looking to get sorted straight away. Anyone else going at this time?

 

Steve and family.

you mentioned that you done Vetassess so that means you are not allowed to do the easy route. Gap training all the way! Enjoy and good luck!

Hi everyone, I've been subscribed to this thread for about 6 months, reading posts ect and been doing research for over that time.

The previous posts have been quite relevant to me because of the WHV.

I'm 24yo elec fitter for an power generation comp and on nov 21st I'm going traveling for a year with my GF.

We're on a year WHV and plan to stay in oz for about 8months.

I can't believe how complicated and difficult the process for gaining your electrical licence is, and I can understand people's frustration.

Our plan is to go over on this trip to see if we like oz, and maybe make a go of it if we do.

 

 

My question is what should I do in regard to an electrical licence as some have mentioned the WHV route.

 

 

In the research I have done I know of the 2 processes involved; vestass and TRA

but it seems like theirs less work involved if you have a WHV?! I.e. no 12 month work book.

My goal would eventually be to work in the mines.

Please don't take this as a dig at the guys here that are having a hard time getting their licence. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

sam

You need to apply to the TRA, Vetassess is for people who are applying for permanent residence. Will take about 3 months but from what i have heard in the past you will be made to do a test and be given a restricted license as they wont grade you as an electrical mechanic as you have worked as a fitter. Someone was posting here a while back as he had worked in a factory all his life and had problems getting a license

I and all the other gap trainers have been going nuts about this. Energy safety just say sorry we sympathise but that's the way it is now. The thing that really pisses me off is that i see guys on WHV doing the 2 week course to get a license. They tell us we will all be doing 1 yrs gap training soon but it ain't happened yet and i don't see why someone with 10 years less experience than me should get the easy route. Plus dont forget the fact us guys on PR have spent a small fortune getting here and we mostly have families to support. They changed the system as i was in the process of moving. If i had known this at the start i probably wouldn't have bothered. You can earn good money in the mines but do you really want to work away on a 4 and 1 roster? It would be like being in a prison labour camp and i didn't move to the other side of the world for that. Perth is a nice city and the weather is great but i have went completely backwards in my career.

Course is done. Basically its the same ETL course as before, Its mostly basic power calcs, max demand and volt drop same as you do in first year apprenticeship back home then you do the capstone (oz trade test) in the second week, register for an online log book( still waiting to hear back i need to chase it up) then fill it out for a year, could be quicker we are told but it seems to be time based so it will be quicker if you work overtime! You will also be sent a project to do at home! Then you go back and do the capstone again( fecked if i know why!) So basically u do 3 trade tests if u include the vetassess one to get your license lol! Oh and you pick an elective as well, Telecoms or one that covers distribution, i picked telecoms as i have experience in that field so i will have to sit a test on that too and prove that i have experience or if you dont you do another 2 week course.

Or you could come on a WHV do a 2 week course and get your license..............................................

Good to hear someone else telling it like it is. The problem you will have, you are competing with people on WHV for TA jobs and some of them will work for $20-$25. Far easier to employ them for quick fix labour.

I have been shocked( pardon the pun) by the work standard here. Basically they wire installations the way we did in the 50s-60s. 16A MCB 1cable from board to jb and the to all sockets, and joint box method for lights. And the lecturers at college were telling us how great this method is too and how its cheaper as it saves on cable!!:huh:. Oh and they use stranded cable and all cables are to be twisted, again something we stopped doing 40 yrs ago. But hey we have to do a years gap training LOL

I do see a lot of jobs on seek and i have applied to loads of them with very few replies and those that did reply said no license thx but no thx. I think a lot of the jobs advertised on seek are just collecting CV's lol!. Yes i agree about the lifestyle being great. What your being paid is pretty good, its more than most i have spoken too that have recently arrived.

I think that its kind of reaching saturation point now. So many people have arrived that the jobs are now filled. But they will keep taking us in so we bring our life savings with us and sink them in to the local economy. There's still a lack of decent sparkys lol but seeing as we are 4th yr apprentices we will struggle till we get our licenses!

I posted some stuff earlier on this thread. Its basically power calcs and some wiring, first aid, safety and some stuff about motors. After the 2 weeks depends on when you got your restricted from energysafe or whether you done ARTC or Vetassess. Out of interest have you managed to find work yet?

All my class is working(some have been here for 6 months) but that does not tell how many have decided not to pay for the course until they secure jobs. I know i held off actually paying and confirming my booking until i found work as its not just $2000 you pay you are also losing 2 weeks pay or being unable to earn for another 2 weeks. I recently met someone here who couldn't find work and has gave up and went to Sydney. I am not being a doom and gloomer i am just stating how it actually is here.I am working now but i applied for over 100 jobs and got very few replies and those that did said i have a great CV and experience but i am no use without a WA license.Employers would prefer a dummy with a license to a gap trainer. I don't see a lot of jobs advertised for TA's although there are plenty for electricians . I don't know the exact figures but lets say 9000 sparks are accepted to oz per yer? Half go to Perth as everyone thinks there is loads of work here. That's a lot of gap trainers and that's before you even count the number of guys here on WHV. All i am saying is don't arrive here and expect to work straight away and be making 100k

Yeah we just have to get on with it. The one problem i do see though is for other electricians arriving after us, i just cant see how there will be enough jobs for the amount of electricians arriving. Companies can only employ so may guys with a yrs gap training at once............................................

The course is basically like being back in first year of apprenticeship. We are getting taught basic power calcs and about how to wire 2 way light switches! The log book we have to fill out online looks time consuming and we will be sent a project to do from home in the post. We really are being treated as apprentices when we arrive here now!