Western Australia will start rolling out its new registration scheme to reduce and provide recourse for substandard engineering work from 2024.
The scheme covers engineers in the civil, structural, fire safety and mechanical sectors of building engineering work and will affect around 1120 practitioners and contractors.
It is almost a year to the day since Concrete Institute of Australia’s news reported that the draft Commerce Regulations Amendment (Building Services) Regulations 2022 had been released for comment ahead of registering building engineers in the state for the first time. The regulations have now been gazetted.
“The register aims to strengthen building compliance, reduce rectification costs, and increase public confidence in the industry,” the Minister for Commerce Sue Ellery stated. “It will also provide a formal recourse process for sub-standard engineering work.”
A two-year transition period for registration with the Building Services Board will commence next year to “deliver safer buildings and greater accountability” according to the WA government, which it says is part of a “wide-ranging improvement plan for building regulation” in the state.
Within each sector for civil, structural, fire safety and mechanical, building engineers will be registered at one of three levels: professional, technologist or associate – and as a practitioner and/or contractor. These will be based on the qualifications and experience of the person carrying out or supervising the building engineering work.
The two-year transition period to registration begins on 1 July 2024 for structural and fire safety engineers and on 1 July 2025 for civil engineers and those in mechanical.
One year after the above commencement dates, registration will become mandatory and anyone without registration who is performing building engineering work in those sectors after that time will be liable for a $25,000 fine.
Image: Perth skyline August 2023. Source: Kgbo CC Wikimedia.
About the author
Desi Corbett
Desi is our weekly news journalist and the editor of Concrete in Australia magazine for 10 years. She has been heavily involved in all forms of engineering since 2013; part of a 30-year writing career across a range of subjects and media.