7 REASONS YOUR APPLICATION FOR A WORK LICENCE WILL FAIL

1. You Don’t Hold The Correct Class Of Driver Licence

 

To be eligible for a Work Licence, you must have held an Open Queensland driver licence at the time of the offence. Many people do not know the eligibility requirements when applying for a Work Licence. If you held a Learner, Provisional, Interstate, International driver licence, then you are not eligible.

 

If you held a Learner, Provisional, Interstate, International driver licence at the time of the offence, your application for a Work Licence will fail.

 

2. You Don’t Complete A Traffic Offender Program

 

If you want your application for a Work Licence to be a success, you must show the Court you are a fit and proper person to continue driving.

You cannot just stand up in Court or say in your affidavit you are a fit and proper person to continue driving. Courts want evidence of what you claim. One thing we get all our clients to do is complete a traffic offender program. Such programs are positively looked upon by the Court as a step towards rehabilitation. Traffic Offender programs cover such topics as drink driving and drug driving. Courts want people to stop doing what led them to going to Court.

 

If you don’t complete a traffic offender program, your application for a Work Licence will probably fail.

 

3. You Don’t Prove You Or Your Family Will Suffer Extreme Hardship Because You Will Be Deprived Of Earning Your Living If  You Are Not Granted the Work Licence

 

You need to prove you or your family will suffer extreme hardship because you cannot work and earn a living without your driver licence. You need to say what you earn each week after tax in your affidavit. You need to show all your main living expenses broken down as a weekly expense. You want it clear to the Court if you lose your job you and/or your family will not be able to financially survive. You and/or your family will suffer extreme hardship if you cannot afford to pay for your living expense. If you don’t prove this, your application for the Work Licence will fail.

 

4. You Don’t Get An Affidavit From Your Employer

 

If you are employed, you must give the Court an affidavit from your employer. You cannot turn up to Court with just a letter from your employer- this will be no good. The law requires a person who is employed to produce to the court an affidavit from their employer.

Section 87(5A) of the Transport Operations (Road Use Management) Act 1995 states:

“…..if the applicant is not self-employed, the applicant must produce to the court an affidavit made by the applicant’s employer confirming the applicant would be deprived of the applicant’s means of earning a living if the application is refused”.

 

5. Your Employer’s Affidavit Doesn’t Say You Will Lose Your Job

 

If you are employed, you need to give the Court a detailed affidavit from your employer. The affidavit from your employer needs to say you will lose your job if you lose your driver licence. It isn’t good enough for your employer to say you may lose your job. You may not need your driver licence to do your job, but you may need it to get to work. If this is the situation, then your employer could say if you were unable to get to work, then your employment would end.

If your employer does not make it clear you will lose your job, then your application for a Work Licence will fail.

 

6. You Can Get To Work By Public Transport

 

Getting a Work Licence is not about the inconvenience it would cause you in getting public transport to work. Getting in your car and driving to work is more convenient than getting public transport to work.

If you can get public transport to work and you do not need your licence to do your job, then your application for a Work Licence will probably fail. Even if public transport is available, you may be able to argue it is not realistic for you to use it. We discuss this issue below in more depth.

 

7. You Don’t Show Public Transport Is Not Suitable Or Available

If you are a trades person and travel from job site to job site carrying tools and equipment, public transport is clearly not an option. However, where you don’t need your licence to do your job, you will need to prove public transport is either not available, or where it is it is not realistic for you to use it. So what do we mean exactly? One of the easiest ways is to go on the Translink website and enter your home address and your work address. We often printout journeys from Translink and attach them to client affidavits to show public transport is not an option.

Situations where public transport is available, but in our opinion would not be realistic for a person to be expected to use it:

1. You would have to walk long distances to and/or from the public transport.
2. You would have to spend long times on public transport making it impossible for you to do your job.
3. The public transport doesn’t operate when you need to get to and/or from work.

There is no hard and fast rule with public transport, but you need to be able to tell the Court why public transport will not work for you.