Additional obligation for specific areas of engineering
As you may have seen in last weeks edition of EngNews (Aug 1), Engineers Australia is requesting members provide feedback on a proposed Practice Standard for Professional Engineers in NSW (see attached) either directly to the NSW Government or to EA itself. Also, see the Regulatory Impact Statement.
The new Practice Standard for Professional Engineers is binding on NSW engineers as a condition of registration. Engineers Australia believes some of the obligations contained within magnify jurisdictional inconsistencies and will make it more difficult for NSW engineers to work across different states and territories. Engineers Australia was part of the working group which advised the NSW Government on the Practice Standard and despite our input, the Practice Standard continues to confuse the roles of individual engineers and their employers, assumes individual engineers rather than businesses enter into contracts and purchase insurance, and assumes all engineering work is done by consulting engineers.
Within the standard, there is a section for additional obligations for specific registrations and specific engineering work.
This affects engineers registered in the following areas in NSW:
- Professional Engineer–Electrical
- Professional Engineer–Fire Safety
- Professional Engineering–Geotechnical
- Professional Engineer–Mechanical
- Professional Engineer–Structural
Professional Engineer–Civil does not have specific additional obligations set in the proposed Practice Standard.
As this section of the document is highly specific and technical, we are looking for our technical colleges to let us know if any of the obligations contained within these sections are too onerous or unrealistic on engineers as a condition of their registration.
Please reply to EA via [email protected] or send a submission directly to the NSW Government, outlining any obligations within the document that you may find are unrealistic on engineers in your specific area of expertise.