Dris proposal for national licensing of the plumbing and gasfitting occupations

1.1The Occupational Licensing National Law Act 2010

The Occupational Licensing National Law Act 2010 (the National Law) has been passed in six jurisdictions (New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania and the Northern Territory). This Act is national framework legislation that seeks to establish national licensing.

The Bill for the National Law passed Western Australia’s Legislative Assembly on 24 November 2010 and was referred to the Western Australian Standing Committee on Uniform Legislation and Statutes Review. The Committee did not support the Bill in its current form and Western Australia will consider its position on the Bill based on agreement of a preferred model following the Decision RIS.

The Australian Capital Territory has reserved its right not to implement national licensing if the costs to the Territory outweigh the benefits.

The National Law provides the high-level framework for national licensing policy and regulations. A copy of the National Law can be found on the national licensing website at www.nola.gov.au.

During the policy development process, it became clear that some amendments to the National Law are required. The release of the draft Amendment Bill and draft regulations occurred within the consultation period to allow for public comment to also occur on these.

Options for reform

This chapter provides a brief overview of the options considered for a national licence for plumbing and gasfitting occupations and the reasons leading to the recommendation of the preferred option. A detailed description of key elements of the rationale on which the selected elements are based is provided in Chapter 3.

1.2Options considered

The options considered for the licensing of plumbing and gasfitting occupations were as follows:

Option 1: National licensing – Three tier option. A single consistent national approach to be introduced for obtaining a plumbing and/or gasfitting licence. This would allow a person to work anywhere in Australia where the relevant work is licensed without having to reapply for a licence or pay an additional fee. A contractor, a (full) licensee and a tradesperson registration holder would require a licence. There were two sub-options under this proposal:

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  Sub-option 1: An approach whereby qualifications for a tradesperson registration are primarily set at the Certificate III level with full licensees requiring an additional set of Certificate IV units for each category. This represents an increase in qualification requirements for some jurisdictions compared with current practice.
  
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  Sub-option 2: An approach whereby qualifications for a tradesperson registration are primarily set at a Certificate III level with full licensees requiring an additional set of Certificate IV units for each category, however the overall number of Certificate IV units of competency for new (full) licence holders is less than for sub-option 1. This largely represents the status quo for most jurisdictions, compared with current qualification requirements.
  

Option 2: National licensing – Two tier option. An approach whereby licensing is required at the contractor and (full) licence level only and a Certificate III qualification would be sufficient to obtain a full licence. A single consistent national approach to be introduced for obtaining a plumbing and/or gasfitting licence. As for the three tier model, this would allow a person to work anywhere in Australia where the relevant work is licensed, without having to reapply for a licence or pay an additional fee. Under this model, only a (full) licence and a contractor licence would be issued.

Option 3: Automatic mutual recognition. This option proposed a ‘driver’s licence’ approach to national licensing, whereby each jurisdiction would continue to issue licences either against existing jurisdictional categories and associated regulated work, or against a harmonised set of categories and work and licences which have been declared equivalent following agreement by the states and territories. In both cases, these would be recognised by every other state and territory without the licensee having to reapply for a licence or pay an additional fee.

Option 4: Status quo. Under this option, states and territories would continue to license plumbing and gasfitting occupations as they currently do.

1.3Preferred option - requirements

The COAG RIS requirements are that a Decision RIS provide a clear statement as to which is the preferred option and why. The RIS should demonstrate that:

the benefits of the proposal to the community outweigh the costs; and

the preferred option has the greatest net benefit for the community, taking into account all the impacts.

There are a number of reasons why the ‘preferred’ model may not be the one with the highest economic benefit These include that the model with the highest economic benefit may not adequately address the risks presented, or may be extremely difficult to implement, given strong opposition by industry. Both factors apply to the proposals for national licensing in the plumbing and gasfitting occupations.

The preferred model is that selected after balanced consideration of all factors: it focuses on the economic cost and benefit but also takes into account appropriate risk mitigation approaches, stakeholder views and the impact on existing industry practices including niche markets.

As the work in this Decision RIS builds on previous consultation findings that were supportive of a national licensing system and which were subsequently endorsed by COAG through the signing of the Intergovernmental Agreement for a National Licensing System for Specified Occupations (the Intergovernmental Agreement) and passage of the Occupational Licensing National Law Act 2010 (the National Law), national licensing was considered the preferred model, compared with automatic mutual recognition and the status quo, subject to a cost–benefit analysis being undertaken of the different approaches proposed to national licensing.