It was thirty years ago...1982.
I had to wait until my 17th birthday...guys back then used to either take sickies or leave work early to get to the police station as quickly as humanly possible to apply for their learners. It was agony if you had to wait until the next day...or, worse, if your birthday fell on a weekend and you had to wait until monday!!!
I was working on a farm at the time (it was normal for schools to just about empty at the end of year 10 & everyone go off to work...only those who were planning on university stayed until year 12 back then), and on my seventeenth birthday was driving a tractor along the side of a country road taking a bin of old tomatoes to the cattle paddock down the road, thinking of how fast dad could drive me into town after I finished work at a planned 4pm so I could get my licence. I heard a "whoop" of a siren beside me, and looked down to see an XE Falcon cop car with two coppers in it. I stopped the tractor and turned it off, and the copper leaned out the window and asked "Is that thing registered?", and my heart sunk. I said "No"...it had no working lights, unregistered, and the tyres were just about bald with no rubber cleats left. He asked "Do you have a licence for it?", and again I said "No" with a sick feeling in my guts. The copper said "How old are you?", and my heart sank again as I said "It's my 17th birthday today, sir". He leaned back in the car and talked to the other copper, visions of getting my licence winging away on the breeze. He leaned out again, said "Try to keep that thing off the road...and happy birthday", and they drove off.
Back then, you went into the cop shop, told him you wanted a learners (showing him your birth certificate to prove your age), and he would stick a card in an old typewriter and tap away with two fingers as you told him your name and adress. Then he would ask what class you wanted, and usually would just then add "I'll just tick off everything...make up your mind later". I think I paid $5 for it, and off I went. The most advice they would give you was "It might be an idea to have a couple of driving lessons with a school"...the whisper was that if you hadn't had at least a couple of lessons, you failed on the first licence test drive no matter what.
Six weeks later (usually the nanosecond the six weeks was up had you eagerly booking a test), you turned up again (I got two lessons with a driving school which was very good as mum and dad didn't reverse park at all), and went for a drive with the testing officer at the police station. I remember doing a reverse park, a hill start, and just driving around the streets a bit. Back to the station, another two-finger-typing session, and there's your licence sonny.
I think it was 12 months before it became an "Open" licence but that was only really important as it meant you could also ride a motor scooter of up to 50cc on your car licence...it made no difference to the car you drove. There was no second driving test to move to "open", and I believe it was really in name only that your first licence was "provisional".
I also seem to recall only having three points for the first year, and nine once you moved to open status. Apart from that, there were no restrictions on cars...bikes of course had the "250cc or under for the first twelve months" thing, which is why I started out on a little 125 Kawasaki before moving up to my 750 triple after a year.
Lots of memories...