Rolfe Hartley, the Past National President of Engineers Australia, is heading up the efforts to create a national registration scheme for the engineering industry. He explains how it will benefit public works professionals and the industry as a whole. 

Unlike other professions in Australia, such as medicine and law, there is no consistent or universal requirement for engineering practitioners to register. There are currently some 14 inconsistent and partial registration schemes in place across the states and territories. 

Only Queensland has a system that requires all engineers to be registered if they are providing a professional engineering service unsupervised.

The varying and often incompatible nature of registration schemes restricts mobility and throws up bureaucratic and financial barriers to engineers wanting to provide engineering services across jurisdictions. This includes public works and services, the provision of which is now commonly supported by consultants and contractors.

Without the need for registration, we are also unable to make any assessment of the skill levels of the overseas engineers coming into Australia to help fill the increasing shortage in professional skills. 

The partial nature of the existing registration schemes outside Queensland also means that we cannot take effective action against someone who practises negligently or unethically. 

In medicine and law, unethical or negligent practice can see an individual denied the right to practise. For engineering, there is generally no such provision. Without a statutory mechanism to demonstrate the qualifications and competence of engineering practitioners and to take effective action against those who do the wrong thing, we as a profession cannot fulfil our obligations to the community. 

No area of engineering has a more direct interface with the community than the provision of public works and services. I know that public works engineers take their responsibility to the community very seriously indeed – registration is a powerful way of articulating that responsibility in the public interest. 

Through the National Engineering Registration Board (NERB); the Institute of Public Works Engineering Australia (IPWEA); Engineers Australia; the Association of Professional Engineers, Scientists and Managers Australia (APESMA) and Consult Australia are working with the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) to press for the introduction of a nationally consistent, broadly based, co-regulatory registration scheme for engineers. 

The Australasian Institute of Mining and Mineralogy (AusIMM) also supports this and discussions are well advanced for the AusIMM to join the NERB.

The NERB’s 2011 report to the Business Regulation and Competition Working Group (BRCWG) of COAG, The Regulation of Engineers, Finding the Right Approach for a National Economy, outlined the preferred registration scheme and discussed the professional, economic and public safety reasons why such a scheme is essential.  

Further work by ACIL Tasman quantified the economic impacts of registration and demonstrated that the net present value of a registration scheme to the Australian economy is in excess of $10 billion. The BRCWG’s work has now been elevated to a taskforce and we are continuing to liaise with that new body through the Commonwealth Department of Treasury. 

Beyond COAG, discussions are progressing well with individual jurisdictions, a number of which are moving towards engineering registration. The ACT has indicated a desire to introduce a registration scheme for engineers using our preferred co-regulatory model and an outline of that scheme is expected early in 2013. The NT is also moving towards a similar scheme and is expecting further work will be undertaken following the recent election. Positive discussions have taken place in WA, and SA has indicated its intention to release a discussion paper on before the end of 2012.

Very strong indications of support for national registration have also been received from both the labour movement and employer representatives, and there has also been a positive reaction from the Commonwealth Government and members of the Business Advisory Forum to COAG. 

We hope the next few years will see the introduction of a consistent, broad-based scheme for professional engineers in most jurisdictions in Australia. We expect it will be similar to the existing Queensland model and will be based around Engineers Australia’s competency standards for CPEng and the National Professional Engineers Register.

Registration is in the interests of every individual engineer and the nation as a whole. It will enhance the status of a profession we are all proud of.

The NERB and ACIL Tasman reports can be viewed at www.engineersaustralia.org.au/nerb/national-registration

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