Advice for someone coming to Aus to drive trucks

At least you're used to driving on the wrong side of the road...!

 

Will tag someone who may be able to help you with information @aussiejosh

 

Ok first off you mention a "temporary visa" is that a working holiday visa? You will need the legal right to work here, a working holiday visa would fine, however any other visitor visa would not allow you to work. In Australia each state has its own rules/ laws* when it comes to allowing you to drive on a UK class I or whether you'll need to apply for a license. In some cases you may only be required to do a knowledge test in others you'll have to do both. If your here short term best option is to go through a recruitment agent / labour hire as they will have more options for part time and temporary work, WA is probably the state with the most demand due to not enough locals to fill the positions and even offer free travel to drivers coming from the eastern states.

However most of the driving jobs going in the West are for Road train drivers operating side tippers very unlikely you'd get a job doing that unless you have prior experience with road trains or b-double side tippers. Your best option would be to get a job around Perth doing general express freight operating Semi trailers. Again you may also have to demonstrate the ability to use a Road Ranger gear box unless your fortunate enough to find a job working for someone with Auto's or Volvos with synchro gear boxes. Agencies to sign on with if you are legally allowed to work and they will ask you this on the application are Silverstone, Techforce, Nucrew. Also you could apply direct with Cube, Centurian are two large companies in WA always looking for drivers although usually its for Road train operators.

Finally if your interested in doing general overnight express freight then living in either Melbourne Victoria or Sydney New South Wales would be your best option there is always a demand for HC operators to do "change overs" where you only go half way change trucks or unhook and rehook trailers and head back to your home base. Lots of agencies over there would be looking for drivers you'll have to sign up with them however can also look to get hired directly by a company although they won't be looking for part time drivers. In NSW, VIC try Hays, Yakka Labour, Workpac, People2U, Labour Solutions, Skilled Hire, Zoom Recruitment, Blue Collar Recruitment, Chandler Macleod, and Alphaforce Labour hire.

*Current rules for WA are anyone visiting for up to 3 months even from Overseas can use that license from their country that would include if your only going to work there for 3 months any longer and you will need to get a WA issued license. As of the 1st November 2025 you would be required to pass both a theory and practical driving test, if you wish to obtain a WA license after 3 months, note each state has different rules so check their rules.

For QLD the official website is tmr.qld.gov.au NSW : service.nsw.gov.au Vic : transport.vic.gov.au SA: sa.gov,au, TAS: transport.tas.gov.au, WA: transport.wa.gov.au

 

Thanks for chiming in, hope I didn’t overstep pulling you in

 

I myself would just like to go on a vacay just to go look at the road trains. Otherhalf says I’m crazy. She said what else is there to do in Australia, told her only road trains.

 

Yes with the mines in WA without either Road Train / B-double and no side tipper it would be very hard to get a job as they always ask for experience, I mean even I could not get a job as some even require you to have Loader operator experience for self-loading would not even allow one to learn, you could however land a job in the mines driving the big Haul trucks/ dump trucks some of the big CAT 797 your looking at close to 500 tonnes fully loaded but you only need a truck licence to operate them to get these jobs you'd need to get a traineeship which if your still young would certainly have a good chance.

Best option with your Fridge van/ Reefer cold freight would still be in the eastern states, lots of transport running Sydney - Melbourne, Sydney - Brisbane all 2 lane freeways now however again lots more B-Doubles in play here which makes it a little harder to land a job only driving singles however still a lot of jobs going as the B-Doubles are unable to go down the suburbs and have to be broken up to unload or re-load you'd easily get a job doing that if you don't mind running around the city to large warehouses unloading then re-loading for the overnight express drivers heading back to Melbourne or Brisbane, the great part about that work is no need for log books. If your doing less than 100 km from your home base you don't need to do logs. Back in the day that was what I used to do just picking up trucks going to the large cold storage warehouses for the supermarket chains to unload chilled produce. Then running around town re-loading the trailers for the overnight express drivers while they were sleeping.

If using RR is going to be an issue by all means get in touch with a driving school I actually did the same thing as I also had zero experience with Road ranger it is not that hard actually you just have to get used to blending the gears and the revs and not putting the clutch right down like a synchro. I used to drive a day cab IVECO hauling around overnight trailers unloading that thing had an 18 speed RR I used to be able to change it perfectly with no clutch it gave me the best practice for later on when I went to the US to drive over there. As far as driving schools go it was so long ago for me, I don't even know if they are still around, best option google truck driving schools or the yellow pages, here are just a few Sydney and Perth based ones, naturally not as many that do driver training for trucks though Sydney NSW based are: All Truck driver training atd.nsw.edu.au based out at Liverpool, Highway truckdriving school, Sydney Truckdriving School, Macquarie Driving School, Perth, WA based driving schools : Red Sand Academy redsandtruckdrivingschool.com.au, Roadmaster Truck Driving School, Mega Truck Training, Perth Transport Training Academy.