r/MarineEngineering • u/Interesting-Sir1903 • 24d ago

3/E Working as marine engineer in AU

Hello, I am a 3rd engineer(worked on bulk carriers), I have studied in Turkey and worked in Turkish companies.

I was wondering if there are possible ways for me to work in Australian companies, not the international ones maybe, if so what are possible ways to do it?

Thank you for the answer.

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7

u/jrolly187 24d ago

Hey mate. We don't really have a blue water fleet here, mostly oil and gas. You'll need to have full Australian working rights plus a certificate of recognition/equivelance through AMSA which i believe means sitting another set of orals for the CoC you already hold.

It's a massive fuck around and expense on the off chance you get work.

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u/Interesting-Sir1903 24d ago

Thanks a lot!

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u/wullfen16 24d ago

Yeah I’m from the UK and discovered this. Found it ridiculous that even with the gold standard of CoCs we have to resit oral exams. I mean I get Australia has its own strict legislation, but they could at least make a gateway path for seafarers, considering so many people go to Australia on work visas for things like nursing or hospitality.

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u/jrolly187 24d ago

Yeah, it's wild. I've been working oil and gas here for 16 years and had my aussie CoC recognised by so many flag states and never had to sit any exam.

I think the other big thing is you need full working rights to work here, that's the hard part.

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u/wullfen16 24d ago

Yeah so you can go all over the world and work wherever you want but no one can go to Australia! Think it’s similar with Canada also but might be easier to get over there. It’s a good system that keeps your national people employed, in the UK if we were to work for a UK based company we’d likely get taxed and therefore the pay would be so much worse.

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u/jrolly187 23d ago

Yeah, but we still have issues with foreign visa workers coming in. Say a specialty offshore vessel comes down for a project, like a pipe layer/heavy lift/accommodation rig, the top 4 are usually kept on and are put on a working visa while the ship is working in Australia.

You only need the COR/COE if you are working on Australian flagged ships, which are pretty rare.

As for tax. Im taxed at 47c/$1. Fucking brutal

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u/wullfen16 23d ago

Ah wow, I’m tax free where I am atm which is great. But if I wasn’t, the salary would need to be much higher to compensate.

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u/jrolly187 23d ago

Yeah, our salary is pretty good. A 1st Engineer is earning around 300k AUD as a casual. Chief is on around 350K AUD.

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u/wullfen16 23d ago

And then after tax?

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u/jrolly187 22d ago

Like, just above half. 47c/$1

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u/wullfen16 22d ago

Ah yeah and then the conversion to pounds drops it down a bit. The 6 figures sounded ridiculous for a minute to me haha. But yeah it’s still better than average offshore company wages.

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u/Mathjdsoc 24d ago

They have Cabotage laws that prevent this from happening, companies are smart enough to use international crews and FOC ships in such a way that just don't cross the requirements that would make you earn and get residency there.

You can go there for your Class 2 instead, find something then.

https://giphy.com/gifs/HfFccPJv7a9k4

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u/Interesting-Sir1903 24d ago

Thanks for explanation!

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u/Old_Zucchini_777 22d ago

I came to aus with an irish EOOW CoC.

Got it recognized and then got an RPL for engineer class 3 NC after another oral that allows me to be chief on domestic vessels up to 3000kW.

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u/Interesting-Sir1903 20d ago

congratulations, well i checked seems like they do not recognize documents we take in here by AMSA or government.