The federal treasurer has announced that he and the state and territory treasurers have agreed to a process to recognise licensed trade qualifications across borders. The Housing Industry Association (HIA) chief executive of industry policy Kristin Brookfield says that the news is a welcome initiative that can benefit both tradespeople and home owners.

“Currently tradespeople in any given state need to apply for a license to work in another state or seek recognition under existing mutual recognition arrangements. This involves time, money and often confusion, and in some cases additional qualifications are needed,” she says.

“It means that a tradesperson moving interstate for any reason, family, career advancement or to assist in times of natural disasters, has to navigate state specific hurdles before they can do tomorrow what they do today in their home state.”

The decision by the treasurers cuts the red tape and can help the flow of workers now while COVID-19 is changing work opportunities into the future as the economy begins to rebuild.

“An automatic mutual recognition licence scheme would obviate the need for more than one licence to be held thereby saving a licence holder associated licence costs and duplication of paperwork,” Kristin explains.

“Increased trade mobility and the reduction of economic barriers to interstate trade is an admirable and desirable goal.”

More effective automatic mutual recognition, particularly for occupational licences, would also help overcome some of the barriers state based licensing systems provide when interstate trades attempt to temporarily work in regions affected by natural disasters, such as the bushfires in Victoria in 2009 and floods in Queensland in 2011.

“At the moment, the trades work in such situations through special permissions and exemptions,” Kristin

“HIA is supportive of this commitment by the Treasurers and we look forward to working with the Federal, State and Territory governments as they develop the details to be released in October.”