457 Sponsor ?

[Guest Sarajayne]

Hi all,

 

Not been on here for what seems like months, just got back from Oz, went over for OH to transfer driving licence, we are trying to head out on a 457 sponsor visa, now that he has his licence the next step it to find a company to sponsor him.

 

Knowing how wonderful you lot are, and how there is always someone ready to help, I'm after any info on companies that sponsor, OH is a truck driver and he now has MC so all we need is a job offer then the rest of the vsa application can be put through, pls pls pls any info would be much appreciated, we are heading to WA ( hopefully )

 

Sara xx

[Guest Gollywobbler]

Hi Sara

I've been following the stuff about truck drivers with a keen interest because I do not understand why it seems to be almost impossible to get DIAC to give them visas.

Please see this thread:

http://www.pomsinoz.com/forum/jobs-careers/35063-truck-drivers-more-information.html

I think that in Post #13 on the thread above I was probably referring to you without being able to find the thread on which you had said it? Next, please see this link, which is the ASCO Code:

http://www.ausstats.abs.gov.au/ausstats/free.nsf/Lookup/A86A0162E6F672DFCA256ADB001D10D4/$File/asco.pdf

Wade through the Index. Something called "Heavy Truck Driver" is in Group 7 under Code 7311-11. Therefore in theory it should be possible to use the 457/RSMS "regional" exemption schemes in order to get visas for "Heavy Truck Drivers" using the eligibility exemptions in ASCO Group 7.

http://www.immi.gov.au/skilled/skilled-workers/rsms/exemptions.htm

However, if Truck Drivers are considered to be in Groups 8&9 instead then they appear to be banjaxed as far as eligibility for a visa might be concerned

So - carry on down the ASCO Code Index to see what skills are in Groups 8 & 9. In Group 9, right at the end of the Index, Code 9992-15 speaks of a "Truck Driver's Offsider". Because that is considered to be an elementary or labouring job, the Offsider has no chance of obtaining a visa, it would seem.

I strongly suspect that the problem lies in getting Hubby classified under ASCO Group 7, rather than as an Offsider in Group 9.

Therefore the next step is to take a detailed look at the job-description under each of the two relevant Codes.

The Page Index is right at the very end of the Code. This tells us to go to Page 508 for Heavy Truck Driver, and Page 590 for Truck Driver's Offsider.

The description of "Heavy Truck Driver" looks normal enough to me except that the emphasis is on "heavy" trucks. Carry on down to see what is says about the "Truck Driver's Offsider. His tasks are as one would expect and he does not appear to need ay qualifications at all.

From the stuff I have read on the web, somebody has persuaded DIAC to believe that a foreign truck driver is no more skilled than an Australian Truck Driver’s Offsider, I suspect, because reference to this idea crops up again and again as you wade through the Web trying to find out what the problem is about.

It is easy to imagine that a bunch of Australian Civil Servants in suits in Canberra could be persuaded (possibly by the Unions) that a foreign trucker has insufficient experience and know-how with Australian driving conditions, particularly in the Outback. Everybody in DIAC’s HQ in Canberra has heard of the Outback. I’d lay money on the idea that none of the senior Policy staff have ever actually been there, however.

In the UK right now, a guy who has only ever been an amateur yachtsman on boats of up to 40ft in length, a guy called Peter Cardy, is in charge of the Maritime & Coastguard Agency. This guy is supposed to be able to represent the UK in international merchant maritime affairs and to run one of the most significant Merchant Navy fleets in the world according to completely skewed thinking in Whitehall! (I’ve met Peter Cardy a couple of times.) The wallahs in the Department of Transport (the MCA’s Guv’nor) cannot get their heads round a ship. Roads, trains, panes etc – stuff they travel on (as passengers only) themselves – maybe. But none of them would know the bows from the stem on a cargo ship, or be able to say what type of cargo it carries just by glancing at the shape of the ship. The proper Merchant Navy & Coastguard guys can all do that, but their immediate boss definitely can’t! So – why not put a guy who wouldn’t be allowed on the bridge of a ship in charge of the UK’s maritime affairs? It happened, so I guess somebody in Whitehall thinks they know why!!

I suspect that exactly the same problem besets Canberra in terms of trying to imagine what the guys actually driving the road trains in the Outback do, and what the offsider on a road train might do. A road train is undoubtedly “heavy.” The offsider doesn’t drive it himself. They might have vehicles comparable to road trains in Canada but there definitely aren’t any in the UK or on mainland Europe.

I don’t think it takes genius from there to figure out that it is not difficult to convince a stiff in a suit that somebody who is not (a) licenced to drive the heaviest possible Australian road train; and (b) has never done so for real either (by reason of not being an Australian Citizen or Permanent Resident and having spent all of his adult life in Australia driving the things) can’t possibly be as skilled as the Heavy Truck Driver, and since nothing in the Code apart from Truck Driver’s Offsider is possible, then foreign drivers might have a skill between those of the Driver and the Offsider, but they surely are not the Driver in ASCO Code 7.

I reckon that this argument is at the very heart of the whole thing, because if the would be migrant driver is not within Code 7 then he is not eligible for a visa either. And to be fair, not every truck driver in Australia drives the really heavy stuff or ever has. My guess is that the great majority have never driven the Outback road trains and wouldn’t want to. And because the Code is so crude and so limited, there is nowhere else in the thing in which to lump them except in with the Offsiders.

I don’t think this is as simple as finding a road-freight company willing to sponsor Hubby for a visa. However willing the company might be, I suspect that the problem lies in convincing DIAC that Hubby is not the Truck Driver’s Offsider and that therefore Hubby “must be” the Heavy Truck Driver instead.

Whether that is do-able is another matter, I fear. Has your Agent explained exactly how he intends to win DIAC over so as to get them to co-operate with your wishes and those of the wannabe Sponsoring employer? If not I would insist on having it explained to me, in detail.

Best wishes

Gill

[Guest Gollywobbler]

Hi again, Sara

Based on the ASCO Codes and all the other arguments I have been reading about, I wonder whether you need to be specific about the types of companies that you target? I'm guessing - completely guessing. You would need to discuss it very carefully with your Agent, I reckon.

To be honest, the ASCO Code astounds me! God knows whether the UK has anything equally barmy. Would you believe that "Automobile Driver" has its own Code? It does and I am not kidding! Automobile Driver is a Group 7 skill – Code 7313-11. One of this person’s skils is that s/he, “Checks passenger destinations and determines most appropriate routes.” It is a group 7 skill so in theory at least our Chauffeur with a ton of experience of earning an annual salary for carting people around (unlike the owner-driver of a one-man-band taxi form) could get a limousine company in Oz to sponsor him for a visa! (In practice it wouldn’t happen because I don’t suppose the limmo firms have bases in some of the more remote townships, but in theory it is possible.)

Right..... So let thee & me do a bit of lateral thinking about Hubby, I suggest. Running with the Code 7 idea, have a look at Code 7314-14 “Delivery Driver.” Also known as a “van or car driver” it seems. What is the Australian definition of a van? Is it, “Anything with wheels that is smaller than a Heavy Truck”?

Now please see Code 7311-12 (the next one down from Heavy Truck Driver.) This Code describes a career called a “Furniture Removalist.” His talents may include driving “large trucks”, so it says. OK. In that case, somewhere in this nonsense that the Civil Service gets paid to dream up, there must be a definition of “large truck.” Plainly a “large truck” is not a “heavy truck,” neither is it a “van.”

What type of licence did Hubby obtain? One that would enable him to drive a 3-trailer road train? They ARE massive machines – I’ve seen 2-trailer ones in rural WA and they are absolutely enormous. I’ve not seen a 3-trailer one but apparently they do exist and can be up to 150 metres long from nose to tail. (I drive a VW Golf about 10ft long, I would guess, to give you a sense of the sheer scale of these really big road trains!)

I have a strong feeling that getting an Aussie licence to drive the type of HGV that Hubby drives now does not even scratch the surface of the sort of licence PLUS hands-on experience that one would need in order to be able to handle one of the really big road trains.

On one of the websites that I read a month or two back on Google Australia whilst trying to get to the bottom of the “truck driver problem” I came across an internet forum. It was an Australian forum. Somebody was talking about the huge road-trains and a group of contributors were grumbling that without the licence for the top-whack huge machines, they were only able to command the same pay as an Offsider. (Presumably a Truck Driver’s Offsider.) These guys seemed to know what they were talking about and it was nothing to do with immigration. They were saying that it is very expensive to do one course after another, in order to get one licence after another, so as eventually to get to the top of the skill/pay tree in the road transport industry in Oz. The debate didn’t reveal whether you have to hold a given licence for a minimum length of time before you can move up the scale to training for and obtaining a licence for the next size up etc.

The issue in the debate I read was all to do with the fact that the Offsider is so poorly paid that he has no chance of progressing up the scale because with a wife and family to support, he (a) can’t afford the time to keep doing training courses and (b) can’t afford the course fees anyway. The sheer necessity of earning a living at all keeps him miles from home all the time, earning a pittance. Consequently, loads of men have apparently abandoned all hopes of ever getting far enough up the driver-qualifications scale to earn decent money out of doing it one day.

Which I can totally understand and sympathise with. I wouldn’t traipse around the Outback on an Offsider’s pay if I could earn the same amount closer to home just by mowing other people’s lawns for them or something similar. (And if you search the ASCO Code, I’ll bet that there is a separate Code for that too. Plus one for Hearse Driver, no doubt!)

How carefully did you investigate which licences are needed for what in Oz in terms of the heavy trucks or the less heavy trucks and the large trucks? Did you discover what the definition of a “Heavy Truck” even is? I haven’t a clue which Australian Government publication would give us the dimensions, weight etc of a “heavy truck” and the others in order to start trying to unravel this whole ball of knitting properly. Plus since I’m a woman and I have more than enough trouble keeping my Golf in a straight line I don’t begin to know anything about how driver-licensing works in the UK and Europe.

I suspect that DIAC officials know that a British Heavy Goods Vehicle is equal to a tiny vehicle in Australian terms. I absolutely and utterly doubt that any of the staff dealing with 457 visa applications know any more than I do about the various Australian Heavy Vehicle licences. I suspect that what happens is an assumption that, “Whatever this vehicle is, it isn’t a Heavy Truck as defined by the Australian Government,” and that that is that. No visa. The staff in the DIAC offices are flat out with 457 applications so they simply don’t have time to pore over each one in detail and ferret through the ASCO Code, ferret through whatever Code gives us a definition of “Heavy Truck” and so forth.

Hence in your shoes, I would be talking with a Registered Migration Agent along the lines of, “If Heavy Truck Driver is not a goer for a visa for Hubby, what about a Furniture Removalist? If a furniture removal company says it is desperate for a Removalist and can’t find an Aussie willing to do it, would that solve the visa problem?”

I suspect that it might not solve the problem, though. I suspect that there could well be a blanket Policy ban on any occupation in the ASCO Code that includes the words “Driver” or “Drives” in terms of visas for the people concerned. DIAC tends to use a cosh instead of a toothpick.

Dunno. I think you need further words with your Agent in order to get a clearer idea about why there is a problem with 457 visa for drivers (because there undoubtedly is) and than take things from there. I doubt very much that a scattergun approach to this would be likely to prove to be worthwhile, to be honest.

Best wishes

Gill