Dris proposal for national licensing of the plumbing and gasfitting occupations

1.24Communication strategy for national licensing

Consultation about national licensing has taken place over several years with a range of stakeholders including state and territory governments, industry, employer and employee representatives and internal working groups.

As with any change to regulations, a communication awareness campaign will need to be undertaken to ensure licensees, consumers and other stakeholders are informed of changes that may affect them once the new system is implemented.

There should be two levels of an awareness campaign for national licensing; one at a jurisdictional level and one at a national level.

A jurisdictional campaign could include the following activities:

direct communications (letters/emails)

metropolitan and regional meetings with licensees

website content and social media

temporary call centre staffing

public information campaign

industry and public campaign management.

An estimated cost, drawing on a Victorian campaign of a similar scale to that suggested above, is approximately $300,000 to $350,000, and is based on approximately 22,000 licensees. The impact analysis contained in this RIS includes a qualitative estimate of the communication costs for governments during the transition period.

At a national level, NOLA would assist with the communication process by ensuring consistency of messaging through the www.nola.gov.au website, media releases and other media and social avenues. NOLA’s board and the chief executive officer will consult with:

ministers and governments

business and industries

other peak bodies, including employee and employer associations.

1.25Review

The Standing Council will initiate an independent public review of the operation of the national licensing system, including the legislation establishing the system, in accordance with the IGA.

It is envisaged that the effectiveness of the NOLS reforms will be measured in a number of ways. These include assessment of the impact of NOLS on:

labour mobility for nationally licensed occupations;

administrative burdens on national licence holders;

the consistency in regulatory requirements between jurisdictions for NOLS occupations; and

deregulatory benefits for businesses and consumers.

The review will take place no earlier than five years from the commencement of the national licensing system and every 10 years thereafter.

Attachment A  Overview of the sector and existing licence requirements

Overview of the plumbing and gasfitting sector

The plumbing and gasfitting industry in Australia is a specialist occupation within the building industry. It is one of the largest of the special construction trades, consisting of over 160,000 plumbing and gasfitting licensees across the country. In 2012–13, the industry is expected to generate revenue totalling $12.8 billion, consistently representing approximately 0.4 per cent of Australia’s GDP.²⁷ The industry derives approximately 30 per cent of its revenue from new residential construction and a further 35 per cent from premises requiring alterations and maintenance work in the residential building market.²⁸

In general terms, plumbing work includes the installation, repair and maintenance of plumbing systems relating to the supply of clean water and removal of wastewater, the removal of effluent, and the pipes, fittings, fixtures, connections and valves necessary for the system. Gasfitting work is the installation, replacement, repair, alteration, servicing or testing of a gas system downstream of the gas supply point.

Plumbers and gasfitters perform a number of specialised and generic tasks, including:

water (supply) plumbing work

sanitary plumbing

drainage work

fire protection

urban irrigation

mechanical services

roof plumbing

gasfitting

LPG gasfitting.

Although most qualified plumbers possess the basic set of skills necessary to complete most jobs, sectors of the industry have specialised in different areas. The main product and services segmentation is represented in Figure A.1. The market for plumbing and gasfitting services is not overly segmented, but generally the key service areas are water, sanitary plumbing and gasfitting. This is reflected in the Plumbing and Gasfitting Certificate III qualification, which requires a participant to do a minimum of four streams of which two streams (water and sanitary streams) are compulsory and two streams are electives. A separate qualification is available for those who wish to specialise in gasfitting.

Figure A.1: Products and services segmentation in Australia’s plumbing and gasfitting industry (2012-13)

Source: IBISWorld December 2012, Plumbing services in Australia, Industry Report E4231.

The industry is dominated by a number of small-scale operators who usually operate in a distinct geographic area, with only 2 per cent of the industry’s employers having a workforce exceeding 20 employees and only six out of over 25,000 businesses hiring more than 200. The four largest companies in the industry make up less than 5 per cent of market share concentration. Given the large number of small operators, the distribution of those in the industry corresponds closely with the distribution of the national population and economic activity. New South Wales accounts for approximately 33.5 per cent of industry employment, which is broadly consistent with the state’s share of national population and GDP. Victoria accounts for about 29 per cent of industry employment and 31 per cent of industry establishments with employees, which significantly exceeds the state’s share of national population and GDP (about 25-26 per cent annually). This partly reflects the high proportion of single dwelling constructions and higher dependence on gas as opposed to electricity compared with other states. The distribution of total establishment versus employer establishments in each state is shown in Figure A.2 below.

Figure A.2: Products and services segmentation in Australia’s plumbing and gasfitting industry (2012–13)

Source: IBISWorld December 2012, Industry Report E4231: Plumbing services in Australia.

According to one report from IBISWorld, the industry has been restrained from high levels of growth due to ‘constraints in skilled labour. Skills shortages impose a significant restraint on industry activity in times of strong demand. Contractors can be limited in their ability to take up business opportunities due to the lack of more specialised tradespeople with the basic plumber’s licence focusing on relatively narrow segments of the industry.

Fly-in and fly-out work arrangements are a rapidly growing area particularly in the mining and resources sector. Skills Australia suggests that employment growth in mining operations will increase by 89,004 persons from 2010 to 2016, with annual average growth in employment in mining operations of 7.9 per cent over this period.²⁹ Plumbers feature as one of these growth employment areas. Plumbers were identified as one of only two construction trades in skills shortage at September 2011 in a Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations report on the construction trades (ISSN 1839-8553), which also notes that a shortage of plumbers had been evident for ‘nine of the past ten years’.