Ivan Dean, Speeches Index

Thursday 20 November 2008

OCCUPATIONAL LICENSING AMENDMENT BILL

Mr DEAN ( Windermere ) - It is very important that we ensure that these people are qualified, but not only do they have to be qualified, they have to be capable of doing the work. For example, a plumber recently engaged another person who was qualified in the area of plumbing to do some work on a home that I know very well because I am currently living in it. The person that the plumber had employed had put a spouting up on this house that ran the opposite way to the downpipe and it was not until after the roof was fixed on that it was picked up - and it was picked up in fact by me. I went back and challenged a plumber who said that it was too late, the roof was already on and they could not change it because of the way it was put in and there was a lot of to-do about why it had occurred, why the plumber did it that way, et cetera, et cetera.

These things happen that should never happen. There is another good example where a qualified plumber was doing another home that I am aware of, and this was brought to my attention. The person that the home was being built for was so annoyed with the quality of the plumbing work that he gave an ultimatum to the plumber that if he brought a certain person back on his building he, too, would be thrown off the site.

Proper licensing and qualifications that these people have are very important but just as important is the capacity and the ability for those people to do the work. You sometimes wonder just what is happening in that qualifications process, just what it actually entails on the practical side and whether or not there has been proper support given to them and proper inspection of the work they carry out to get their qualifications at the end. It is a critical part of this whole process. Of course I support the bill because this can only make it better and can only ensure that all people out there who are doing trade work are capable and able. Being qualified does not make you always capable, unfortunately, of carrying out the work in a practical sense. That is a critical point in relation to this.

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