Describing it as a long and arduous journey, National Occupational Licensing Authority (NOLA) board chair, Elizabeth Crouch, called on conference participants to grab this opportunity with both hands.
“If we don’t do it now another 20 years could pass, we need to pull together and make it happen,” she says.
The final step is a meeting of Treasurers in November which will lead to a final decision on the best licensing model to be implemented in 2014.
Crouch says national licensing is about a consistent set of rules but dealing with so many states and territories is never easy.
The process has involved the release of regulatory Impact Statements (RIS) in August 2012 which was followed by consultations throughout Australia.
After consultation with industry, Treasury worked on a Decision RIS which examines the net economic position of the proposal.
“The Decision RIS might represent the best option in economic terms but that doesn’t necessarily make it the preferred policy,” she says.
“For example, option one is the have the ARCtick license only which represents the best net position economically but this option is not supported by industry.”
Crouch says option two has the most support from industry and allows contractors to retain full and provisional licenses. At the same time ARCtick accreditation will remain in place.
“Our plan is to do more work to better align national licensing and the ARCtick system as its an ideal opportunity to reduce duplication,” Crouch says.
“We also want to include continuing professional development, to target training and to make it a condition of licensing.”