Division Manager for Engineers Australia Canberra, Keely Quinn feels that an engineering registration scheme needs be delivered immediately in order to increase safety standards in the ACT and protect the profession.

It’s time for the ACT Government to deliver on their five-year-old promise to create a register for engineering in the ACT.

WorkSafe ACT recently announced that they would not launch prosecution over the 2010 Gungahlin Drive extension bridge collapse, which resulted in the hospitalisation of nine workers. This has not been an isolated incident; the 2012 “Getting Home Safely” report showed that issues around engineering had directly contributed to many of the ACT’s worst construction accidents, including the Barton Highway bridge collapse, the Belconnen wall collapse and the Marcus Clarke Street slab collapse.  This report showed that inappropriately qualified and inexperienced engineers were signing off on structures outside their areas of expertise, and approving work they had not actually seen.

With issues around the engineering of construction projects so prevalent in the ACT, there has never been a more prudent time for a register to be established in order to protect both the people working on and eventually using constructed structures, but also the esteem that qualified and experienced engineers are held within society. There are currently no laws to prevent an unqualified person from practising as an engineer, which is dangerous to the profession and the wider public.

The Government has openly agreed with the findings of the “Getting Home Safely” report, and in 2012 announced that it would set up a compulsory registration scheme for engineers, before the recommended June 2014 deadline – yet no tangible progress has yet been made.

Engineers Australia, along with other industry bodies, have called for the ACT Government to deliver on their promise of an engineering register. Sound engineering practice is absolutely critical in the delivery of safe, fit-for-purpose public structures.  If the ACT Government is serious about protecting the public in their use of such structures, a register for engineers needs to be set up as quickly as possible.