Discussion paper: National Registration Framework for Building Practitioners

This is a heap of codswallop. Yet again you academics sit in your ivory towers trying to justify your public service existence by finding some area that you can stick your grubby little unqualified fingers into specialist areas that seek to bring in even more onerous and ERRONEOUS rules and laws and licence fees and higher insurance PI costs that PROHIBIT and RESTRICT well qualified and capable practitioners from doing their job FOR WHICH THEY ARE ALREADY QUALIFIED AND HAVE BEEN FOR DECADES WITHOUT YOUR INTERFERENCE and clearly show that you have NO IDEA about how Building Design evolves.

YOU CANNOT SEPARATE BUILDING DESIGN AND DISABILITY ACCESS AND ENERGY EFFICIENCY AS SEPARATE ENDORSEMENTS AS THEY HAPPEN AT THE SAME TIME AS THE BUILDING IS BEING DESIGNED _ NOT, NOT, NOT, AFTERWARDS

YOU CANNOT DESIGN A BUILDING WITH CORRIDOR WIDTHS AND DOOR WIDTHS AND DISABILITY SPACE REQUIREMENTS ETC WITHOUT PUTTING INTO PLACE THERE AND THEN THE AS1428 REQUIREMENTS.

THE WAY YOU HAVE SET THIS UP EXACTLY CAUSES A NON-ENDORSED BUILDING DESIGNER TO DESIGN A NON-COMPLIANT BUILDING FROM THE OUTSET THAT WILL HAVE TO BE REDESIGNED AFTER DISABLED INPUT FROM WHO????? A NON-QUALIFIED BUILDING DESIGNER TO TELL A BUILDING DESIGNER!!!!!

THEY CANNOT OPERATE THEIR BUSINESS AT ALL - YOU HAVE EFFECTIVELY SCUTTLED THEM FROM THE OUTSET. IT FAILS MISERABLY THIS WHOLE SETUP. YOU ARE COSTING TIME AND MONEY

A QUALIFIED BUILDING DESIGNER HAS TO KNOW THE BCA, THE CODES, THE AS'S. THEY ARE QUALIFIED, HEAR THAT, THEY ARE QUALIFIED, QUALIFED, QUALIFIED.

WHAT YOU ARE DOING IS COUNTERMANDING THAT QUALIFICATION, BECUASE IF THEY ARE QUALIFIED AND NOT HAVE HAD TO TAKE INTO ACCOUNT DISABILITY THEN THEY ARE INSUFFICIENTLY QUALIFIED AND THAT SMACKS STUPIDITY OF THE EDUCATION SYSTEM.

IF THEY ARE QUALIFIED AND HAVE HAD TO TAKE INTO ACCOUNT DISABILITY DESIGN THEN THEY ARE QUALIFIED FOR DISABILITY AND DONT NEED ANY ENDORSEMENT.

AND 3 YEARS TO GET AN ENDORSEMENT????? - ARE YOU FOR REAL, ITS NEEDED UP FRONT STRAIGHT AWAY

AND YOU WANT BCA TRAINING - CRAP - BCA IS READABLE AND UNDERSTANDABLE.

THE TROUBLE WITH THE BCA IS THAT IT IS NOT CONSISTENT AND HAS BLATENT INCONSISTENCIES - YOUR FAILURE AGAIN.

OURS BUILDING REGS WAS BASED INITIALLY ON THE UK BUILDING LAWS, I KNOW, I KNEW THEM BOTH IN 1973.

CLASSIC EXAMPLE IS STAIRS. YOU CHOSE TO ELIMINATE THE TOE SPACE CLAUSE DECADES AGO. THE STAIR SECTION STILL SHOWS TO THIS DAY A TOE SPACE IN VOL 1.

VOL 2 SAYS YOU CAN HAVE A VERTICAL RISER.

YOU DONT CLIMB STAIRS ANY DIFFERENT BE IT CLASS 1 OR CLASS 2 -10.

STAIRS HAVE SINCE THE ADVENT OF REGULATIONS SET THE REQUIREMENT FOR A TOE SPACE, BECAUSE IT IS A WELL KNOW FACT SINCE THE YEAR DOT THAT WITH A VERTICAL RISER IT CAUSES STEPPING TO BE CUT SHORT AND LESS SOLE CONTACT WITH THE TREAD AND THEREBY INCREASES THE CHANCE OF SLIPPING OFF THE FACE OF THE TREAD CAUSING INJURY.

BRING IN THE DISABILITY RULES AND NOW NO NOSING IS ALLOWED AND THAT EXACERBATES THE TRIPPING ISSUE. MIND YOU YOU SEE NOTHING WRONG WITH PUTTING TACTILES AT THE TOP OF STAIRS WHICH CREATING TRIPPING HAZARD SPOTS, SO YET AGAIN THE RULES AND THE CODES CAUSE ISSUES BUT YOU CHOOSE TO TUEN A BLIND EYE TO THEM.

ITS A TOTALLY INCONSISTENT APPROACH, ACADEMIC, IMPRACTICAL AS USUAL, SELF-SERVING, OVER-REACHING, CHANGES NOTHING FOR THE BETTER AND PATHETIC

ALSO OF YOU ARE WANTING A MUTUAL RECOGNITION PRINCIPLE. THIS MEANS THAT REGISTERED IN ONE STATE AUTOMATICALLY ALLOWS WORK IN OTHER STATES AND NOT HAVING TO GET REGISTERED IN EACH AND EVERY STATE TO WORK. THAT CHANGES NOTHING FROM HAVING NO MUTUALITY. THE BCA IS AUSTRALIA WIDE. IF YOU CAN WORK IN QLD YOU CAN READ THE THING AND WORK IN EVERY OTHER STATE. WANTING LICENSING IN EACH STATE IS JUST A MONEY GRAB

QLD doesnt need the NRF - we are already licensed, so for QLD - NO, f

For the rest of Australia it has to be yes as they have no licensing

Mind you, there are a lot of people out there that "build" stuff, especially theie own and its illegal but who gives a damn as its not policed, not even in Qld unless there is a complaint.

The whole approval regime hinges on ONE FINAL APPROVAL and that approval is lifetime of the building. The owners use it year in year out as compliance for insurance yet have built new construction unapproved which negates that certificate - and there is NO FURTHER CHECKS ON BUILDING COMPLIANCE>

This issue I raise becuase this NRF is just another example of the piecemeal approach, because the whole is at failure and this will not help the whole, merely sting the people you need to design buildings.

Nobody will want it, as its a complete burden and restrictive - its not beneficial to the community or practitioners.

The public really dont understand or care as it hits their hip pocket all the qualifications and get frustrated with the cost of bureaucratic red tape they have to jump through.

For example a $4000 car port costs $15,000 dollars to get approved. That is totally wrong.

QLD should not have to do a thing and for my part I expect to be handed the full gambit of Level 1 without question. 51 years of major commercial and residential experience gives it to me unquestioned, including disability and energy assessment.

If it doesnt, then its retirement and you lose all my decades of expertise - well done, short sighted to realise it

Certifiers (Building Surveyors) are that.

Unapproved building will continue and this wont make a tinkers cuss difference to that.

Thats why it fails

Example - a builder will build a shed for a client. The clients bought the shed from a proprietary company. Neither the builder nor the company supplying the shed needs to get a building approval to sell and erect. Approvals are all left to the owner. The owner doesnt want to bother getting approvals so the builder builds the building. There is nothing is place to force the builder to erect only structures that have compliance. Yes there are laws that says the building must have an approval. But that is all it says. The whole thing come sup short. NRF isnt going to change this so therefore its basically pointless.

There should only be one, Class 1 - if you cant do that then get out of the kitchen.

And it should not have any endorsements - it should be complete as a whole. You cant design without it being complete otherwise your designing sub-standard designs and sub-standard documentation - it defeats the whole idea of the the NRF.

THIS SHOULD BE PLAINLY OBVIOUS TO YOU LOT, NOT OBLIVIOUS TO IT AS IT SEEMS YOU ARE

The standard disciplines are covered.

But there are mechanical ventilation and air conditioning contractors that design systems and are not RPEQ. Thye put a photocopy of the AS kitchen hood in as a drawing. The they work it all out on site. The approval is not a detailed approval, its generic. I found one duct going thorough a window that countermanded the BCA required natural ventilation.

These are the cowboys - they need to be stopped so you must address the grey area issues of contractors acting as design consultants because they can the owners want it because the contractors say they can save them design fees. And owners are wise to this

A building designer level 1 should be able to do everything related to building design without compromise or endorsement

They should also be allowed to undertake contract administration and design and contract co-ordination as of right as it is an integral part of a building designer and they should also be ratified as a builder as if they can design and document buildings they can certainly build them

The new ones are based on current desires. They should not be the only criteria. They should be equally recognised and stand equally against the current requirements

I obtained mine in 1972 and this should not be downtrodden , especially as I have now over 51 years of experience and currently am documenting a 14 building commercial site with hundreds of drawings and have drawn every single line of the architectural drawings and co-ordinate 6-10 consultants at 69 years old - a team of 6 would normally be on it so I consider I don't have to answer to any bureaucratic new fan-dangled regime you introduce by people far less qualified and capable than I.

Every graduate that steps out of the tertiary education system is a greenhorn. Academia produced, welcome to the real world and the trails and tribulations and requirements of clients and stupid new regulations and delays and frustrations.

There is no education equivalent to experience and hands on.

Many architects are the fat pencil brigade - that's all they do, fat pencil lines and shapes, leave it up to someone else to sort out the details. Too boring and below them but in reality they have no idea what to do.

The same goes with building designers. How are you going to sort them out?

Leave me alone, let me get on with the job I enjoy and extremely capable of doing and have whats left of my life enjoying what I do - and not having to put up with stupid and ridiculous bureaucratic crap.

You either are or you arnt - different levels have proved a problem.