National Consistency
Three talkfests, summits, forums call them what you will held in recent times, all in Canberra, and amongst a number of outcomes and many disappointments a common theme input by industry has been the need for national consistency. Of course this is no surprise to this Institute and the many other plumbing organisations that have long championed national consistency in plumbing regulation and licensing. Council of Australian Governments (COAG) had a go a few years back, the National Plumbing Regulators Forum (NPRF) under instruction from COAG had a go, Water Efficiency Labelling and Standards Scheme (WELS) had a go and in fact achieved consistency, trouble was it was consistently wrong as they disregarded industry and conveniently forgot the only consistent thing we have that is the requirement in all States and Territories that products installed in a plumbing system must be Watermark approved.
WELS Stakeholder Forum
The WELS Stakeholder Forum held 11 March 2008 was a 4 hour event attended by about 90 people from both the Plumbing and White Goods industry’s and was advertised as an opportunity to express views about the WELS Scheme and for the WELS team to provide updates on proposals to expand the scheme and to introduce minimum water efficiency standards for WELS products. It must be said that the WELS team gave themselves a glowing report card in relation to development of improved registration system, review of the WELS Act, cost recovery etc. all feel good things for bureaucrats but not very impressive to the assembled delegates. Responses to questions from the floor were sparse and in fact ignored in some cases or taken as suggestions to be followed up (not sure when!) Delegates tried to get the message over that it is a minefield for manufacturers, suppliers and plumbers when trying to ascertain what is allowed to be installed when non-approved products (no watermark) are given a zero star WELS registration and whare-housed direct to developers. When these activities are reported there is no feedback to Industry as to the outcomes, if any, from any investigation. It is to be hoped that the input by the stakeholders is taken up but industry will have to stay on the case as the next forum is now pushed back to 2009. To stay in touch with what is happening try the “inkwells” newsletter at www.waterrating.gov.au
NPRF Industry Forum
On the 13 March in Canberra the NPRF hosted the ‘Barriers to National Consistency’ Industry Forum. This forum was also well attended by a large cross section of the plumbing industry and was touted as an opportunity for the NPRF to engage with key stakeholders. Industry was certainly given the opportunity to express its views with a round of speakers during the morning session given free reign to tell it how it is. Apart from specific issues the general view was that any barriers to national consistency are not put in place by industry and in fact industry has championed national consistency for many years. Workshops held in the afternoon session reinforced this view with outcomes such as a cohesive, united plumbing industry, maintaining an industry voice, competence based licence renewal, industry engagement with regulators, a national code (Plumbing Code of Australia), enforcement of Watermark, make WELS work, a national licence, consistent training delivery, consultation, take up of recommendations of the parliamentary review report “Managing the Flow”.
2020 Summit
Then we had the PM’s 2020 Summit 19-20 April, it did not produce many new ideas as it was supposed to do but tended to follow the government spin. Once again an underlining theme seen in many reports is the need for national consistency and if plumbing had been represented nationally consistent training and regulation would have fitted under most of the headings just as importantly as those put forward by the supposedly 1000 best minds in the country!
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