According to Engineers Australia, the Australian engineers organisation, an overwhelming majority of their members welcome new Victorian legislation requiring the compulsory registration of engineers.
Government Control of Australian Engineers
The legislation, The Professional Engineers Registration Bill 2019, just passed Victoria’s Legislative Assembly. It is expected the upper house will debate it in late May.
Over the past four months, Engineers Australia conducted 22 major presentations to their Victorian members.
According to Alesha Printz, Engineers Australia’s Victorian General Manager, among their members, “the issue of compulsory registration has received overwhelming majority support.”
Public Polling
The organisation also conducted public polling. Ms. Printz says the Victorian community is strongly supportive, noting that “93 percent of respondents” in their recent poll thought engineers should be “registered or licensed.”
The main reason the organisation wants this legislation is consumer safety. Printz says “While Victorians in many other professions, including doctors, architects and lawyers, have to register to be able to legally carry out work, there is nothing to stop a person from calling themselves an engineer, even if they are not an engineer.”
The benefit to consumers is that it will be easy for them to determine if they are dealing with a qualified and competent engineer. Good engineers maintain standards through ongoing professional development. They are bound by a code of conduct.
The General Manager says the goal is higher levels of community safety and consumer protection.
She said, “Compulsory registration would be a significant step forward for the industry and we urge as many members as possible to support the legislation in the upper house.”
An engineer herself, Alesha Printz received her Master of Engineering Science (MEngSc) focused in Project Management from the University of NSW.