Victoria continues to pursue “unworkable” Engineers Registration Scheme

Despite negative feedback on the proposed regulations for the Victorian Engineers Registration Scheme, the Victorian Government seems determined to continue pursuing the proposed legislation.

Between August and October last year the Victorian Government sought public feedback on the proposed guidance material for the Victorian Engineers Registration Scheme. In late December the Department published the results of the consultation.

Greg Forbes, HVIA’s National Manager Policy and Government Relations commented that the Victorian Government clearly needs to go back to the drawing board in relation to this legislation.

“This was an ideological exercise driven by Engineers Australia to boost their membership and can’t be justified on community benefit grounds,” Mr Forbes said.

Mr Forbes said that the document circulated in December tried to put a positive spin on the devastatingly negative feedback.

“Thirty nine percent of respondents said the proposed regulations would not work in practice,” he added.

“Forty one percent said that the proposed regulations need to be clarified amended or removed, and more than half said the fees imposed by the scheme would have a negative impact on their business.

“Virtually every question they asked got more than 25% negative feedback.”

Mr Forbes said HVIA has consistently argued that this legislation should not apply to engineers working in the heavy vehicle industry because they are already regulated at a national level by the Department of Infrastructure and the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator.

“Additional red tape at a State level is counter productive,” he said.

“I can’t believe the Victorian Government is still pursuing this legislation after this sort of feedback.

“They need to scrap the scheme or, at very least, follow the lead of NSW which decided to take a much narrower focus and just concentrate on the building industry.”