Opal Tower, Neo200, Mascot Towers, Australia 108 … building safety incidents in Australia keep piling up, driving calls for industry bodies and the government to take action.
In August this year, residents of 169 apartments in Sydney’s notorious Opal Tower began returning to their homes – eight months after their evacuation on Christmas Eve, when loud cracking noises sparked fears of the building’s collapse.
The tower’s structural failings were identified in a NSW Government report, released in February, which also outlined rectification works and a series of recommendations for how such alarming structural defects could be avoided in the future.
The first recommendation echoed a proposal from the landmark 2018 Building Confidence report by Peter Shergold and Bronwyn Weir, and has long been a high priority for Engineers Australia: the creation of an engineer registration scheme for all states and territories.
Industry in the spotlight
Engineers Australia has been advocating for such as scheme to be legislated for the past two decades. Peter McIntyre, Engineers Australia CEO, said the existing National Engineering Register (NER) has been effective in setting a uniform national benchmark of professionalism. However, its voluntary nature presents a limitation.
“We introduced the NER in 2015 because governments had not required mandatory registration in every jurisdiction,” he said.
“It has been very successful and has helped the public to identify practitioners that we recognise as having the right training, skills and commitment to ethics and ongoing development. But it doesn’t prevent those who don’t have the right qualifications, or who aren’t committed to ethical practices, from working as engineers.”
McIntyre added that the NER provides a good model for governments to adopt when developing an engineers registration scheme.
While the ultimate aim is compulsory registration for all engineering occupations in all industries, the building sector has become a special area of focus due to significant flaws identified in the Shergold Weir report. High-profile incidents such as Opal Tower and, more recently, cracks in Mascot Towers in Sydney and complaints of structural defects in the Australia 108 residential building in Melbourne, have also led to the erosion of public confidence in the building industry.
In its recent submission to the NSW Government discussion paper Building Stronger Foundations, Engineers Australia outlined three recommendations, formed in consultations with its membership, that it believes will strengthen the industry and assist in regaining public confidence.
Support for registration
While Engineers Australia recommends that all jurisdictions implement all recommendations of the Shergold Weir report, the scope of its submission focused on compulsory registration of engineers.
Such a registration has been in place in Queensland for 90 years, and progress is also being made in Victoria where the Professional Engineers Registration Bill 2019 passed through the state’s Legislative Assembly in May this year.
Compulsory registration has also garnered widespread support from Engineers Australia members.
In a national poll commissioned by Engineers Australia in July this year, 88 per cent of respondents agreed that engineers should be registered. In NSW, that figure increased to 91 per cent and is consistently high across all demographics.
“One of our concerns is that, right now, in any state or territory other than Queensland, anybody can call themselves an engineer – even if they don’t hold the appropriate qualifications,” McIntyre said.
“If you’re a doctor or a lawyer, you can’t do that. If you are a plumber or an electrician who works on a building designed by an engineer, you need to be licenced to ensure you’ve got the right skills and qualifications. Yet this is not a requirement for engineers, so there’s a gap in the framework of governance.”
Karlie Collis, Principal and Senior Structural Engineer for Northrop Consulting Engineers and Chair of the Engineers Australia’s National Structural College Board, believes the public assumes that engineers already require registration.
“The reality is that my five-year-old son could sign off on a 10-storey building if he wanted to,” Collis said.
“Registration is something the public expects and the public deserves.”
Guy Hodgkinson, Principal Project Manager and Engineering Design Manager at Middleton Group, and a member of Engineers Australia’s Victoria Division Committee, described compulsory registration as a “hot topic” in the industry.
“In the case of the proposed Victorian legislation, I believe that the devil will be in the detail,” he said.
“However, anything that can give more confidence in safety and systems can only be a good thing. Without engineering, nothing gets built and nothing works properly. If most other professions require registration, it’s quite baffling that engineering does not.”
Building a better industry
Engineers Australia’s first recommendation in its response to the NSW Discussion Paper is that the proposed new registration scheme be aligned with those already in operation in Queensland and those currently before Parliament in Victoria.
“The absolute gold standard is that we have a nationally recognised system,” Collis said.
“Failing that, we should have identical schemes in each state to iron out any red tape and discrepancies, and to simplify the process of being able to work between states.”
The second recommendation is that the new registration scheme for currently unregistered engineers be applied to all who provide professional engineering services in the building sector, with the exception for those working under the supervision of a registered engineer.
The final recommendation is that an engineer registration be designed to enable its eventual expansion beyond the building industry to all engineering occupations in all industries.
No ‘silver bullet’
McIntyre stressed that a compulsory registration for engineers is not a “silver bullet” to fix problems within the industry, but rather an important first step in creating a system to recognise competence. He also sees Engineers Australia playing an important role in a NSW registration scheme.
“We are the largest assessing body in Australia for the RPEQ (Registered Professional Engineer of Queensland) system to assess engineers’ competence to be on that register,” he said.
“We also do audits for the Queensland Government in terms of people’s ongoing professional development.”
Progress toward reform was signalled at the beginning of August with the appointment of an inaugural NSW Building Commissioner. While Engineers Australia welcomes the appointment, McIntyre said industry reform remains a matter of urgency.
“We are happy that the NSW Government is earnestly talking about registration, but we do want to see progress with more haste,” McIntyre said.
“Given that the Building Ministers’ Forum endorsed the findings from the Shergold Weir Report that it received in February 2018, it’s a concern that each and every jurisdiction is not actively progressing registration.
“To each government around Australia that does not have a registration, we encourage them to give more focus to the implementations of the Shergold Weir report as a priority. We want action on this issue.”
Another propaganda article by the Institute of Engineers Australia. It fills me with dread to know that my membership fees are being used to strong-arm my profession into forced money extraction practices whilst providing no tangible benefit to my profession.
engineers registration is just a money making exercise for the institutions, nothing else.
It’s about time we had all engineers licensed. Trades such as electrical and plumbing have required licenses. If you want the job done right always use licensed personnel.
EA CEO Peter McIntyre is right. Recognition of the profession of structural design engineering in State Legislation is just the first step. The real issue is ongoing affordable relevant training and then on the job experience. Also, what no-one is talking about is how unique structural design is. It is not like architecture, where the independent certification checking of exit paths, fire services, cladding panel specifications is relatively straight forward. Th right comparison is that structural designers are like authors and checking certifiers are like editors. If the structural system concept is wrong, but the calculations all add up, then no amount of checking will repair the failure of a wrong structural system. For example, making precast panels a load bearing element in high rise buildings is simple to document for an architect, but the structural engineering consequences of a load bearing precast panel structural system are very critical, particularly if the structural support of those panels is not very carefully considered to avoid brittle effects, (perhaps this is at the root of the Opal towers problems). So the D E S I G N E N G I N E E R I N G of a building is where to focus on quality of input is required and where the focus of industry support needs to be. Then the structural design check is necessary to identify any errors in the detail design. B U T, to think checking will fix fundamental errors in structural engineering design concept is to fail to recognize that checking will never fix a poorly designed structural system. Building settlement, too much sway deflection for a brittle glazing and cladding system will not get picked up in calculation checking. Mismatching of open spanning structural elements amidst brittle and rigid precast panel elements both all mixed together will pass the checking if all the numbers add up but will be found out in a failure of adequate in-service performance, which are the causes for these recent buildings being emptied of their intended occupants.
So the training of design engineers needs to be funded. when you work it out, this alone requires design fees to be raised by 50%. Then the cheapest price approach almost ensures a cheap deign concept approach from engineers too fearful to speak up and reject an architect’s flawed building concept that will lead to a flawed structural system. Developers builders and architects who have played one engineer against the other in an engineers fee war to try to save 1% – 2% in the cost of construction by getting a cheap engineering D E S I G N fee have only got themselves to blame. However, also, engineers failing to speak up as one about this fee war for design engineering is also to blame. So please, could we get the need for funding D E S I G N engineering training and reform of fees put at the top of the page. It is the people of Australia who need the design engineering to be right and properly funded with adequate fees to do the job properly. They do not want a cheap fee war to save 1%-2% of the cost of their building. Otherwise, don’t bother. Very soon, cheap rubbish design will be coming in from off-shore and all us once proud Australian design engineers will be put out to pasture and our great Australian structural design history and ethic will be lost forever. It is all about engineering fees being raised to support a force of securely employed and well trained structural engineers who work together in a collegiate manner, not in the rabble of a fee brawl which is where we are at the moment.
Let’s all get real. The issue with poor engineering is the self certification system (Vic and QLD).
Proper, independent review of designs not only allows a better assessment method, but also allows better information sharing across the engineering community.
When an independent assessment is done, the assessor can question the designer and they share viewpoints on design aspects and theory.
I also agree with Peter Cox re fees.
It’s economic reality that engineering firms need to compete for work, which inevitably forces fees down when some firms cut corners and then fees. If there were independent assessments, then those “cheap” engineers, would need to provide full and proper computations and drawings to justify their work, which would force their fees up in line with more reliable engineering firms.
Registration of Processional Engineers in Australia.
I am in strongly in favour of the registration of professional engineers in Australia.
Qualifying for registration should not however just be a “rubber stamp” based on holding an Australian tertiary engineering qualification, a couple of years of relevant professional experience and gaining the grade of Membership of IEAust and Chartered Professional Engineer. I base my opinion on my experience in California in the 1970’s.
After four years of working as an engineer in Australia I had the opportunity to work in California for a major engineering design and construction company. There, I was encouraged by the company to gain registration as a Professional Engineer in Chemical Engineering in California.
As I was not an engineering graduate from the engineering faculty of an engineering school at a list of top tier American universities, I had first to pass the “Engineers in Training” or “Fundamentals in Engineering” exam. I prepared for this at a short two evenings a week refresher course. I sat the exam with young graduates and some final year students from “second tier” engineering schools. I found this examination to be about the equivalent of my second year of engineering at the University of Adelaide. I felt that this exam was ensuring that future professional engineers had a sound understanding of the fundamentals in maths, and the relevant sciences.
I passed the Engineers in Training exam at first attempt but I was staggered by the very high failure rate of the “engineers” who sat for this exam; all people who had supposedly passed their equivalent tertiary exams.
I next did a twenty week refresher course in preparation for the two half day open book professional (PE) level exams in chemical engineering. Again I was very surprised by the very high failure rate of the graduates who sat this exam. If I remember correctly, engineers had had to have worked for two years before they could sit the professional exam.
Finally I required professional referees who certified my professional engineering experience, engineering capabilities and professional integrity (ethics) before I could gain my professional registration.
Registration of professional engineers in the USA has evolved since my time. However I understand that the professional level exam (the exam after tertiary graduation called Principles and Practice in Engineering) is still required and the overall principles for their “Professional Engineer” registration are the same.
If we are serious about having high professional standards and integrity of (chartered professional) engineers in Australia, a well structured national registration scheme is required. I think with the huge proliferation of “engineering” and hybrid “engineering” courses in Australia we need a system not dissimilar to the American system. This system would have a universal “Fundamentals-in-Engineering” examination, a “Principles and Practice in Engineering” (PE) examination relevant to the engineering discipline, referring and interview for engineering capabilities, professional integrity and ethics before gaining professional registration.
An Act of Parliament will not achieve this on its own.
There is a huge focus in our current world on both time and cost. We seem to want everything immediately as cheap as possible. This was not the case when engineering icons like the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Snowy Scheme were built. In the days before computers there was actual real independent checking of the design, from the concepts used, the design input and then the design output. Checking by competent experienced engineers who had learnt their trade under older experienced people.
Then during the construction a sizable team of inspectors and engineers would check every aspect of the construction. Then came modern technology and quality assurance. How many times did young engineers come to me with their design output only for me to say “I think there is a decimal point wrong somewhere” or “Do you really think that you will be able to get the concrete in around that much reinforcement”. Then in the field the contractors started to check their own work and provide a piece of paper to say it was all OK. But of course they had a conflict of interest because they had a serious profit motive so the cutting of a few corners was OK.
In the building industry there was the introduction of private certification where people could make money by signing off on things which they may not have been competent to sign off on. And governments at all levels beholden to a system of private developers who are driven by how much money they can make, never mind the rules.
To obtain my membership of the Institution of Civil Engineers (UK) I had to produce detailed designs and undertake a comprehensive professional interview to prove I was competent in my field. Whilst the proposed registration of engineers may improve the standard of practice it is not a single solution to the problem our profession is facing. It may be a small step which may have a positive outcome but the whole construction industry needs to have major reform a all levels. It needs to reintroduce proper checking of ALL work at ALL stages in the design and construction process.
Yes this will increase costs but let’s get back to a position where we can all stand up and be proud of our profession. Politics and business must accept that the way we are going is not appropriate and that there is much, much more to engineering our future than minimum cost and time.
If engineers australia want compulsory registration then why did they leave the Professional Standards Councils (https://psc.gov.au) scheme?
Seems odd that they want registration without being listed as a Profession??