Without national alignment in NSW’s engineering registration scheme, the state’s engineers and employers are losing out on critical talent mobility and competitive advantage. With the loss of productivity as well as risks to public safety, the case for a nationally consistent registration scheme in NSW has never been more urgent.
When it comes to engineering registration, NSW is lagging behind its interstate neighbours – and it’s creating mounting compliance costs for the profession. Aside from the building sector, there is no mandatory statutory registration a NSW-based professional engineer has to undertake to practise. And there is added complexity for engineers moving between jurisdictions. They are needing to navigate different registration environments.
This patchwork landscape of engineering registration is a long-standing regulatory issue that Engineers Australia is committed to tackling.
“As it stands, we currently have inconsistent laws around registration across states and territories,” said Engineers Australia CEO Romilly Madew AO FTSE HonFIEAust EngExec. “This regulatory misalignment acts as a barrier for individuals and employers, and puts a break on the NSW economy.”
Harmonising the current NSW engineering registration scheme with other states’ best-practice schemes, such as the Queensland or Victorian models, would provide more comprehensive registration coverage of engineering industries, and bolster technical competency and professional recognition in the profession.
Taking this step could help mitigate cases such as the disastrous Opal Towers incident in 2018, which helped to set in motion the present engineering registration scheme in NSW.
Currently, only engineers working on certain classes of buildings in NSW need to be registered under the Design and Building Practitioners Act 2020, including class 2 (multi-storey, multi-unit apartments), class 3 (boarding houses, hotels, etc.) and class 9c (residential care buildings such as aged care buildings).
“While we know most engineers provide their services competently, ethically and with diligence, in the absence of registration for engineering, the risk remains that simply anyone can claim to be an engineer on any project or work site (outside buildings) in NSW,” Madew said.
Calculating the costs
The inconsistency of NSW’s engineering registration system is placing significant administrative and economic pressure on employers.
For instance, for an organisation delivering a large-scale infrastructure project extending across interstate boundaries, engineers may be required to apply for as many as three state registrations depending on where they need to operate.
This means engineers and employers may be simultaneously juggling multiple sets of registration fees, periods of registration and CPD requirements.
These were common examples of friction experienced by engineers working across various industries, recounted in a panel discussion and roundtable hosted by Engineers Australia at NSW Parliament on 28 May with industry representatives and members of parliament.
See the diagram below for a snapshot of the current national engineering registration landscape:
With the critical need for major infrastructure – a pipeline valued at $118.3 billion over the next four years – engineering registration is a productivity issue for governments, Madew said.
Increasing mobility
Engineers Australia’s proposed co-regulatory model would essentially allow NSW engineers to “register once, practise anywhere”, Madew said.
Analogous to a car licence, the proposed model would be based upon a standalone Professional Engineer Registration Act that enables professional associations and state governments to work in partnership to assess applicant competencies against registration qualifications, and maintain a national register, respectively.
NSW doesn’t have to look far to establish a robust, nationally consistent registration scheme, said Bernadette Foley FIEAust CPEng EngExec, Group Executive of Professional Standards and Engineering Practice at Engineers Australia.
“We’re not starting from scratch. We know what the essential elements are, and we can work with the NSW Government to support a design which meets minimum standards and achieves consistency.”
A key component of a high-quality registration scheme includes aligning it with Automatic Mutual Recognition (AMR).
Under AMR, engineers registered in one state would be eligible to practise in another participating state by simply notifying the regulator. By cutting the need for individual state-based registrations, organisations could enhance their competitive mobility.
For AMR to be possible, the participating states must prescribe similar definitions, standards and registration requirements, said Denis Slade, Head of Registration at Engineers Australia.
However, this isn’t feasible with the limited scope of NSW’s current registration scheme.
“The longer NSW maintains the focus on just the building industry, it will stand out as an outlier because other states are moving forward,” Slade said. “The ACT is moving forward. Victoria is moving forward.”
Strengthening public trust
A nationally consistent, high-standard registration system ultimately enhances professional accountability, industry capability and public safety in the long term.
It provides a foundation for improving standards, according to Karlie Collis FIEAust CPEng, Structural Engineer, Principal at Northrop Consulting Engineers, and a panellist at the roundtable.
“Could something like Opal Towers happen tomorrow again? Yes, it can. We can’t sit on our laurels and think we’ve fixed this problem,” Collis said. “Does registration fix that? No, but it’s a very important foundation to be able to build the extra things we need to do on top of that.”
“NSW is an economic powerhouse, and it deserves best-practice regulations so it can develop, attract and retain Australia’s top engineering talent,” Madew said.
