colinmacl

Easy enough as long as you can pass an English test..............

Yes it will as i said previously they cover far less here for insurance than the UK

About to watch it myself!

Basically medicare is the same as NHS. no one is refused treatment you just may have to wait. That is where the similarities end. In Australia if you earn over $160k as a family you pay extra tax so in that case it may cost around the same as your premiums of say $300pm. If you have private health insurance in oz it does not cover 100% unlike the UK so you will always be paying gap payments. Personally i think it is a total rip off, would you accept car or home insurance that pays 60%?. I would say save the $300 pm and if you ever need an op you can pay for it from savings. If you have a heat attack in the street the ambulance takes you to a public hospital so again its pointless. I have it for dental and ambulance as they can be expensive but most people just accept it as the norm here as they don't know better.

How many of those ABN's are people working on building sites who are not really business but are paid this way so as the employer can save money and get rid of easy. A young brickie on a WHV with an abn for example is not a business.

Amount of experience makes no difference with sparkys. Your mate was lucky he got his license before the changes and he would have had to still do a 2 week course. All sparks do the gap training regardless of previous experience. Vetassess give you the cert 3 once you complete the gap training before that during your migration they give you an equivalent which allows you to apply for a visa then upon arrival entitles you to apply for an electrical workers permit and do the gap training. That's just the way it is as of 1st July 2012. People with TRA ie holiday visas came on to the new system on jan 2013. No amount of research will find you a different answer. Best to listen to the sparkys who have arrived recently.

Sounds great but lets say you lose your job and the market goes down at the same time, then you are stuck with a property at the other side of the world renting at a loss for a long period or sell and lose your equity.

In a nutshell yes it will but it is just a matter of when. Just look at the current statistics avg house price $500K. avg wage $70k 7 times avg wage. lowest ever amount of first home buyers on record. Lots of new homes sold are people buying investment properties on interest only mortgages. Sound familiar?

Well I don't unblock toilets for a living. But those who do are told by immigration there is a high demand for plumbers and then arrive here to find that they must spend a fortune and are unable to easily find work. I am an electrician and we get it even worse, we have to train for 1 year upon arrival and it finishes with a trade test the same as Aussie apprentices do despite passing all the criteria to get in the country. Now I accept that there are differences but they are not hugely different. Put it this way during my years gap training i was taught LOL! how to wire sockets and lights in a house the same way as they did in the 60s in the UK, and had to cover a lot of electrical theory stuff that I had forgotten from when I was in my teens. They never once touched on anything to do with lndustrial, Commercial installations. So did my gap training teach me anything seeing as i don't do electrical work in houses? It taught me that the reality of being a spark or plumber over here is very different from the dream that we are sold in the UK. You are not told of these requirements by the DIAC or migration agents. I knew before I arrived because of forums like this one.

I had a look at the leaflet and it looks like the comms elective to me. Whole thing is cheaper too. As for the A grade everyone still refers to it here as A grade in job ads etc. Its just an electrical license.

You need the comms to get your cert 3. There are other courses you can select but i dont think the colleges run any classes for them so comms it is!

No there is no way around the gap training. I just think it will be better organised and possibly a bit cheaper. A lot of electrical companies here send there apprentices to CET instead of TAFE.

Capstone is the Australian trade test that the apprentices do. If CET can provide gap training now then do it through them it will be better. The government TAFE's ( colleges) are terrible and very disorganised, I had no choice but to do it through TAFE when I arrived. The whole thing costs you around $10000 when you factor in lost earnings. Getting employment can be difficult and I have heard of people being paid as little as $25 ph which is a very small wage ( around 800 after tax) to support a family on and would cover a modest rental and weekly bills and no more.

You also have to pay another $150 to vetassess once you complete everything to receive your cert 3, then a license fee of $400 for your A grade to energy safety

Bit of an overestimate there! Most brickies will get about 250-300 a day on an ABN. Ie self employed pay own super,transport etc no holidays or sick leave.