Back in December I shared a few minor frustrations that we experienced while trying to get our Australian drivers licences. You can re-live the magic by clicking here.
On 8 August Zaren and Cyrus will be turning 17 years old! This has a couple of implications:
1) Holy $h!&*^ they're turning 17!
2) They are able to legally drive in Australia
Before you get too excited about it though, consider this: they aren't able to legally drive in Australia. I know, you're thinking "but didn't he just say that they're able to legally drive in Australia"? Yes and no. No because I wrote it, I didn't say it. Yes, because that's what I meant.
Zaren and Cyrus, henceforth known as "the boys" for the sake of brevity, hold valid Canadian drivers licences. Based on Australian law that means that they're able to drive in Australia. But not so fast. In Western Australia, henceforth known as "WA", you need to be 17 years old before you can drive. You are able to get your Learners Permit as a 16 year old. So, "the boys" were able to only legally drive in "WA" for the first 3 months after arrival. That's how long anyone is allowed to drive on their foreign licence presuming it comes from a recognized country such as Canada. After those 3 months expire you are not allowed to drive without a WA licence, which means waiting until your 17 years old. But getting a WA licence is no big deal. If you recall the link above, to the post entitled "The Land That Time Forgot", you'll remember that it was, in fact, kinda a big deal. For Nadia and I to get a licence we needed to get what's called a "Proof of Age"(POA) card. It wasn't difficult but it certainly was illogical and largely ridiculous. We can look back at it now and laugh about it between the shots of whiskey and tears. One of the criteria to get a POA is that you must be 18 years old. Here are the other criteria that is required to get an WA licence:
A. One of the following:
-Australian or New Zealand birth certificate
-Australian or New Zealand Citizenship or Naturalization documenation
-Evidence of Resident status
-Evidence of Immigration status, ie. visa
B. One of the following:
-Current Australian drivers licence or learners permit
-Australian passport
-Current overseas passport
-Parent idenfication and statutory declartion
C. Two of the following:
-Current Australian EFTPOS (ATM) or Credit Card
-Medicare Card
-Electoral Enrolment card
-Veteran affairs pension card
-Security guard licence
-Marriage certificate
-Photographic student ID
-Photographic Police or Military ID
-WA Proof of Age card
-WA firearms licence
-WA Working with Children Card
D. One of the following:
-Australian bank statement
-Utilities account
-Letter from current employer
-Letter from education institution
-Residential tenancy agreement
-Official document from government agency
I've bolded the documents that we hold and are able to use towards the certification for getting the boys drivers licences. The same rules applied for Nadia and I but since we are over 18 we were able to get the Proof of Age card. The boys are not. That leaves them one criteria short from category C. Therefore, in order for them to be able to get a drivers licence in WA they need to do one or more of the following to satisfy category C above:
-turn 18 years old
-join the military and then retire from the military with a pension
-become a security guard
-get married
-join the police
-become licenced to own and operate a gun
-become a social worker
When Nadia was discussing the difficulty of these option with the supervisor at the WA Department of Transport Driver and Vehicle Services office, he suggested one of three options that may allow the boys to legally drive in WA:
1) wait until they're 18 years old
2) write a letter to the government and hope that they receive enough similar letters that the government will revise their policy that is less than a year old
3) get a student ID from their school
Unfortunately, the schools here do not give photo IDs. You may be asking yourself "then why would they bother to list it as a criteria if it's not even available"? The answer, of course, is to remain consistent with all of their other ludicrous policies. So, now we need to go to the kids school and ask if they will be willing to doctor-up some sort of photo identification for the boys. Otherwise, Zaren and Cyrus will not be able to legally drive in WA for another year. Ugh.
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You probably thought (or hoped) I was finished with the "Bureaucracy Run Amock!" post. But alas, there is more to tell.
Here's another "interesting" law in Australia: they have a two-tiered healthcare system. There is the public health system (medicare) and the private health system. Every Australian is covered under the public system which is paid for via taxes. If you have the means you can also get private coverage which offers some benefits like reduced waiting times, private rooms, private hospitals, etc. However, if you do not have some level of private coverage you are forced to pay a levy. The cost of the levy depends on age, income and other factors. Fortunately, as non-residents we are not subject to the levy. We just need to prove to the government that we are non-residents. In order to do so, we need to provide to the government a certified copy of our used passport pages and Australian visas.
Allow me to summarize: we need to give the Australian government proof of the documents that they issued to us.
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Australia is a funny country at the moment. They are desperate for foreign workers as they have a huge shortage here. They are going around the world to recruit people. That's how they found me. But when you arrive here they seem to do everything they can to make sure you know that you're not entirely welcome. The two anecdotes above are small examples of this. Additionally, there is a lot of political bickering about "foreign workers" and immigrants in general. Undoubtably, some of this is because of the illegal refuges, known as "boat people" that try to sneak into Australia, on a daily basis, from countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and others. WA in particular, has seen a huge influx of foreigners, particularly British, in the last 5 years. So, the locals are somewhat sensitive at the moment to non-Australians. I don't dare remind them how Australia wasn't "discovered" and settled by the British just a couple hundred years ago and that the convicts that came over here were immigrants that treated the locals quite poorly (and still do).
The current administration has put policies in place so that foreign workers, like us, no longer are eligible for the living away from home tax allowance. So they're removing a tax break that we currently receive. It was in place originally as a way to encourage people to work not only in Australia, but also in remote parts of Australia. On the one hand they're encouraging people to come and work and live in Australia. On the other hand, once you're here they like to remind you that you're not one of them. And that is okay by me.
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