Erm... yay for QLD Transport?!?!

[Neeek]

Being a Pom with one of those old-fashioned licences (you know, the folded-up ripped-to-shreds piece of paper with no photo ID that's lived in your wallet and cops laugh at when you pull it out for them...), and having just got my permanent residency in Australia, I thought it was high-time I got myself a QLD licence.

Now, there seems to be some confusion within QLD Transport as to when I am legally obliged to get a QLD licence...

A friend of the family works for them, and once told me that I had to get it done within 3 months of arriving in Australia... that would mean I'd have had to get it WAY back in April 2004..!! However, I rang them up around that time and asked a person at their call-centre, who said I would be fine until I was granted my permanent residency, and then I had 3 months. So verbally, I was none the wiser although I believed the call-centre person, and didn't bother getting a plastic card just yet. Mostly because I was lazy. This tactic appeared to work, as since then I've bought 3 cars, been insured on all of them and of course been down to QLD Transport to have them registered in my name... all with my UK licence.

So imagine it's two weeks ago. Just got permanent residency in Australia, so it's time to get my QLD licence, I reckon. I go and have a shufty on the QLD Transport website and find this:

How long do I have to change over? (overseas licence)
You must change the licence to a Queensland driver licence when all of the following apply:
You obtain resident/immigrant status in Australia.
You take up permanent residence in Queensland.

Once these apply, you need to change the licence over within three months.
If you do not have resident/immigrant status, and are visiting Queensland on a visa, there is no requirement for you to change over your licence.

So I think "damn" and realise that I might have been driving illegally all this time and the call-centre bod was wrong. Worse, I might have to take the entire practical test! 12 years of driving and I'll have to do it all again, with all of the bad habits I've picked up during that time. I am sure to fail...

But then I find something else, on a different page on the same website:

When would my authority to drive in Queensland on my foreign driver licence be withdrawn?
Your authority to drive in Queensland on your foreign driver licence will be withdrawn if you:
- Become medically unfit to drive safely.
- Have been residing in Queensland for 3 months after becoming an Australian citizen or getting a visa from the Australian government that allows you to stay in Australia indefinitely.

Immediately, my hope is restored. But I'm still amused that the site appears to contradict itself... in fact, it's dead heat.

Anyway, I go down to QLD Transport last week with my UK Passport for ID (and visa), a couple of cards and a utility bill, fully expecting to be pulled up and told I need to take a written and practical test.

But no! Apparently only a short time ago, all UK licence holders that transfer to a QLD ones are exempt from any form of testing!! The woman behind the counter didn't even check the page in my passport for my residency status! $50 or so and a photograph later, I was handed my new laminated licence.

I asked her what the deal was with the permanent residency thing was, and she just shrugged. "No idea, sorry..."

So I'm still none the wiser, but at least I've got my QLD licence now. Amazing that you can get two different answers to the same question from the same people. And even more amazing that I can just waltz in there and get a licence so easily.

Right, time to lose some points over Christmas... not...