Professional registration schemes have been rolling out across the country, but the regime in New South Wales remains something of an outlier. Calls are now growing to bring it into line with other jurisdictions.
Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and the ACT all have regimes in place for professional registration of engineers – and all are slightly different. New South Wales in particular stands out, with its focus on addressing issues in high-rise residential buildings.
In New South Wales, engineers only need to be registered if they work on class 2, 3, or 9b buildings, or a building that includes a class 2, 3, or 9c part. In other states, registration covers not only all building types, but engineering work not done on buildings. These discrepancies complicate registration across borders.
To resolve the issue, Engineers Australia convened a roundtable at NSW Parliament, bringing together ministers, shadow ministers and MPs from all parties and independents to hear from leading industry and business representatives advocating for a nationally consistent engineering registration scheme in New South Wales.
Better together
The forum highlighted the public safety, economic and professional benefits of aligning New South Wales with national best practice and provided a platform for dialogue between government and industry stakeholders.