Regulating Engineers: the Government's next steps
17 September 2019
Engineering New Zealand and engineering consulting firm executives met Building and Construction Minister Jenny Salesa last week. This was following by a meeting between Engineering New Zealand and the Chief Executive of MBIE on Friday.
Then this week, the Government
released its summary of submissions on all the building law reform
proposals, including changing the way
engineers are regulated.
Government releases summary of submissions
MBIE has produced a document that
summarised key themes from submissions, and the detailed feedback
received on each of the proposals. It says the need for legislative
change was strongly supported, and there was a high level of support for
many of the proposals. MBIE says it also received a lot of valuable
feedback on how the proposals can be refined, and how they need to go
further in some areas.
Read MBIE’s summary of submissions,
https://www.mbie.govt.nz/have-your-say/building-system-legislative-reform-programme-public-consultation/
Our meetings with the Minister and MBIE
Last week we told the Minister
that while we agree that change is needed and we support licensing for
safety-critical work, we don’t support an additional statutory
certification scheme.
We said we believe government regulation should be restricted to areas
of public safety. General competence and professionalism are more
effectively regulated by the profession, and this is the international
norm.
We also stressed the breadth of the consultation process we’d gone
through to develop our view, and the importance of a systemic response
to lifting quality across building and construction.
Our conversation with the Minister was cordial and productive – at a
high level, we’re on the same page. Everyone wants a regulatory system
that keeps New Zealanders safe and gives the public confidence, and the
Government sees Engineering New Zealand playing a pivotal role in this.
We agreed on much more than we disagreed and, most importantly, we
agreed that together we could find a way through the challenges that
works in practice.
Next steps
To make this happen, we’re going
to be working much more closely with MBIE, as they work through issues
and design the new system. Initially this will take the form of looking
at different options and understanding their consequences.
MBIE expects the Minister will present a paper to Cabinet over coming
months to confirm the next steps for the reform programme, with a public
announcement made following Cabinet’s decisions.
Still ahead is a vast amount of work to develop the detailed legislative
design. There will be opportunities to engage through this process, and
again through the select committee process next year. Legislative
changes are likely to be rolled out over the next two to five years.
We’ll keep you updated.
Read "MBIE's proposes new way of regulating engineers", https://www.engineeringnz.org/news-insights/mbie-proposes-new-way-regulating-engineers/
Read "We've spoken up on regulating engineers", https://www.engineeringnz.org/news-insights/weve-spoken-regulating-engineers/
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Source: Engineering New Zealand - www.engineeringnz.org
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