Page 6 - Climate Control News Magazine August 2019

News
Queensland fine- tunes licensing plans
THE QUEENSLAND GOVERNMENT IS CURRENTLY CONSULTING WITH THE HVACR INDUSTRY TO FINE-TUNE ITS NEW MECHANICAL SERVICES LICENSING FRAMEWORK WHICH IS SET TO BEGIN ON JANUARY 1, 2020.
License holders must hold a Certificate III qualification or equivalent.
THE PROPOSED FRAMEWORK has been revised several times as part of the consultation process with feedback on the latest Regulatory Impact Statement (RIS) officially closing July 5, 2019.
The latest proposal is a significant improvement on the government's pre- vious attempts which were strongly op- posed by industry for being too much like the Victorian licensing model. Con- cerns were raised with the government about Refrigeration and Air Condition- ing (RAC) technicians being displaced by plumbers and other trades.
These concerns are covered in the lat- est RIS which states: “The consultation identified broad industry concern about Queensland simply adopting the Victo- rian mechanical services licensing model. In response to feedback re- ceived, the Queensland model was sub- stantially modified to recognise the specialist streams of mechanical servic-
es work and enable the regulation to di- vide the licence into licence classes that reflect the specialist streams of work.”
The Queensland government esti- mates there are around 4,461 RAC techni- cians that will need to obtain the new li- cense by the time the transitional period ends on January 1, 2022. The new frame- work recognises air conditioning and re- frigeration as its own specialised trade with license holders expected to hold a Certificate III qualification or equivalent.
Individuals with on the job experi- ence rather than formal qualifications can apply for RPL (Relevant Prior Learn- ing) which provides credits towards a qualification based on work history.
Victoria and Tasmania are the only other states that issue a mechanical ser- vices work license.
Further talks with industry groups are expected to take place in coming months.
Call for speakers
HVACR PROFESSIONALS ARE invited to submit abstracts for semi- nars, panels and workshops to be delivered at ARBS 2020.
To be held in Melbourne from May 19-21, there will be two seminar programs on a broad range of topics.
The Speaker Series will provide industry wide updates and forums on innovation and best practice while the IBTech Insight Series will focus specifically on SMART Buildings and property technology.
Speaker submissions can cover a broad range of subject areas from case studies, research and global trends, to emerging technologies and innova- tions impacting facilities management (FM).
Other examples include building design trends, net zero strategies, refrigeration, training, regula- tion and compliance, rating tools and industry standards, energy efficiency, HVACR mainte- nance, BIM, REVIT for design. This is just a few of the proposed topics for ARBS 2020.
The Insight Series (Ibtech) will deal with SMART buildings and retrofits, data analytics,
IoT, cloud services, Blockchain, buildings as power stations, data driven commissioning and integrated communication networks.
The format can be a seminar, case study, panel session or workshop, between 30 and 75 minutes in duration.
Speaker submissions close August 30, 2019. Guidelines and submis- sion forms are available for download at www.arbs.com.au, or can be emailed by sending a request to seminars@arbs.com.au.
CLIMATECONTROLNEWS.COM.AU
Some of the
action from ARBS 2018.
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