Explanatory Memorandum
(Circulated by authority of the Minister for Finance, Senator the Hon Mathias Cormann)NOTES ON SCHEDULE 1 - Tradespersons' Rights Regulation Act 1946.
Introduction
10. Schedule 1 contains the repeal of the Tradespersons Rights Regulation Act 1946.
Background
11. The Tradespersons' Rights Regulation Act 1946 (TRR Act) and its associated regulations underpinned the Australian Recognised Trade Certificate Program (ARTC Program). The ARTC Program was a domestic skills assessment program that operated from 1946-2014 and was managed by Trades Recognition Australia (TRA).
12. The TRR Act provides for six Central Committees, one each for engineering, boilermaking, blacksmithing, electrical, sheet metal and boot trades and a local committee for each trade. The Central Trades Committees operationally functioned as a single committee with representatives from each of the six trades.
13. The TRR Act (and ARTC Program) was established to recognise the trade skills gained by Australians during World War II. It was amended in 1952 to provide formal recognition of the trade skills of migrants in Australia who had undertaken their trade training overseas.
14. State and territory licensing authorities and industry groups were involved in the consultations to replace the ARTC Program, and the implementation of the Trades Recognition Service (TRS). They were formally notified of the program changes on 22 September 2014.
15. The TRR Act effectively became redundant on 1 October 2014 when the ARTC Program closed, and was replaced by the TRS.
16. The TRR Act and the ARTC Program are mentioned in Queensland, Tasmania and Western Australia electrical licensing legislation. These states will not be impacted by the repeal of the Act as the value of ARTCs, which do not have an expiry date, depends on how accepted they are by the state and territory licensing regulators. This operates in a similar way to degrees issued by training providers that subsequently cease to operate.
17. The TRR Act was first identified for review in 1995. A review committee was formed in 1997 and in 1998 it recommended the Act be repealed given the following developments in the domestic training system had removed the underlying rationale for its continuation:
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- introduction of a new national Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF) providing an overarching national policy for regulated qualifications in the Australian education and training system;
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- introduction of the first industry endorsed national training packages and accredited courses; and
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- introduction of a framework of nationally agreed registration requirements for training providers.
18. A repeal bill was introduced to Parliament in 1999. However, Opposition Senators recommended the bill not proceed and it was still before the Senate when Parliament was dissolved prior to the 2001 general election. The bill was not reintroduced in the following parliamentary term.
19. In 2010, Paul G Byrne Consulting was commissioned to conduct another review of the TRR Act and ARTC Program (the Byrne Review). The Byrne Review recommended replacing the ARTC Program with a service that was aligned to the national vocational education and training (VET) system, involving assessment against Australian competency standards in AQF qualifications.
20. In late 2012, a Transitional Advisory Committee (TAC), consisting of government, employer and employee association and licensing authority representatives, convened to consider options for the future of the ARTC Program. All parties agreed on the need to modernise the ARTC Program. As with the previous reviews, the TAC recommended repeal of the TRR Act and replacement of the ARTC Program with an alternative skills assessment service aligned to the national VET system, using registered training organisations to conduct skills assessments. Ministerial approval was received in 2013, and noted in 2014 following a change of government. The ARTC Program was replaced by the TRS on 1 October 2014.
Explanation of the provisions
Part 1 - Repeal of Acts
Tradespersons' Rights Regulation Act 1946
21. Item 1 repeals the whole of the TRR Act.
Part 2 - Other amendments
Sea Installations Act 1987
22. Item 2 removes the reference to the TRR Act from the Schedule in the Sea Installations Act 1987. This is a consequential amendment to remove a reference to the TRR Act which is repealed by Item 1.