"Currently the NSW plumbing industry has over 100 separate regulators including local councils, Sydney Water and Hunter Water, each of which impose their own local requirements." "Fair Trading has been licensing plumbers and regulating the home building industry since 1996 so this proposal is a natural and practical fit." "A single regulator will also improve efficiency and enable more effective compliance programs and prosecution of unlicensed plumbers."
Charles believes the reforms will deliver greater certainty for industry and consumers by cutting red tape and updating regulations to bring NSW into line with national standards. "NSW will adopt the Plumbing Code of Australia as the industry technical standard, replacing the more prescriptive NSW Code of Practice for Plumbing and Drainage," he said.
"Applying one technical standard for NSW will allow plumbers to work more easily across a number of regions, without needing to know small, local variations."
"It will result in greater consistency, increased mobility and more competition in the sector, which is a win for industry and consumers alike."
"Plumbers in NSW will no longer need to remember a myriad of local variations to plumbing standards."
"A new exemption from some compliance and enforcement activities will also be created for minor plumbing and drainage works,"
"The commonsense measures contained in the legislation mean that a plumber can change the washers on a tap or fix a broken pipe without having to lodge a lot of paperwork or have the job inspected by compliance officers" Charles concluded.