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[MUSIC PLAYING]
You do get to do a lot of different things, which is why
I'm still here.
I've done more than 12 years in Defence.
You get to go to different places where your normal
everyday job wouldn't take you.
So this is where you get to travel around, have a look at
the place, and all expenses paid.
And get paid while you're doing it.
Went to Afghanistan last year.
Yeah, that wasn't too bad.
It was a good trip.
We were actually part of the camp maintenance team.
Yeah, it was actually one of the better trips
I've been on, actually.
We actually did some good trade work over there, all our
trade related work straight to the trades,
which was really good.
I'm from Perth.
Probably just to give a bit of diversity to my career.
Something different.
I was doing the same thing every day.
Gets a bit boring after a while, and yeah.
As you can see, in the Air Force, we get to do a lot of
different things.
You definitely get caught up to speed on all the courses
required, certain things that you wouldn't necessarily do
outside, like going in and rigging.
You can find space courses.
I mostly came in with carpenters,
electricians, and plumbers.
You come in already qualified, plus two years post trade
experience.
Once you do get in, you do do other courses.
You do your backhoe [? skiddies, ?] your
scaffolding, chainsaws.
Airfield lighting.
We have to learn all that as tradesmen.
[INAUDIBLE]
HV, or your High Voltage.
A lot of the blokes do come in with [INAUDIBLE], like your
[? skiddies, ?] those type of codes.
It's on the other side of things, more
your Defense things.
Obviously, you only can do those, obviously, within
Defence, which is something different.
Pretty much just a normal working day,
from 10:00 to 4:00.
Yeah, you do come across lots of different challenges.
Going overseas and those type of places.
Obviously, you've got to carry your Austeyr, or your F88.
You've got to have that on you all the time.
You usually have to get full body armour on.
So that does make for some very challenging--
there's one word for it--
situations, where if you're on a roof going a roof, and
you've got on your weapon, your CBA on, which is your
body armour, on.
It's definitely something that you wouldn't
do on a Sydney street.
The big plus for me is that the
pay's here every fortnight.
As a contractor outside, you never know where the next
check's going to come from.
That's a big plus for most tradesmen, I think.
You get your free health and dental, and subsidised housing
as well, which is a big plus.
A lot of people don't take that into account.
In the Air Force, you don't have to supply
any of your own tools.
Everything's supplied for you.
As tradesmen, we are the ones who actually have the input
into what tools we buy.
So we make sure that we get the best bit of kit.
Everyone has their own preferences on what tools they
like, so we try and get a full range of tools that people are
used to using to make it easier for them, really.
Yeah, we haven't got too bad of a set-up here.
We've got the table saw, thicknesser, surfacer, sander,
and what not.
It's most of your basic joinery works type machines.
You do get a variety of jobs that do come through, ranging
from the token plaque to making up
some doors, some frames.
And somewhere you've got a machine up timber for it.
It's quite functional for what it is.
As in the run of the mill carpenter, you should be out
in the outside world where you're bashing frames, doing
houses, those types of things.
You don't come across this type of stuff unless you
actually work in a joinery shop.
So in that respect, a lot of blokes do come through to me.
Myself personally, I hadn't touched very little of this
type of machine through an apprenticeship.
So I actually joined Defence or the RAAF.
It's one thing you do actually get to do, is actually get to
use some of the machines you don't normally get to use.