LICENCING CHANGES - Effective 1st July, 2007

As some of you will already be aware, there are going to be some significant changes to the licensing system as we know it over the next few years.

WorkSafe Victoria are implementing these changes by phasing them in stages.

This first stage took place last week, where the Certificate Assessors were issued with new paperwork, replacing the old C1 & C2 form system with the L1 & L2 forms.

From the applicants perspective, the main changes are:

1. Assessors/RTO's are no longer able to pay the licening fee on behalf of the student.
2. Licence fee has dropped from $65 to $60, and are now payble to Australia Post (not to WorkSafe themselves).
3. Australia Post will require 100 points of identification and additional passport photographs to issue the licence.
4.The new forms will be valid for a period of 60 days from the time of issue. Failure to lodge with Australia Post will result in having to re-complete the entire assessment again.
5. The new licence will now expire after 5 years, when the applicant will be given the oppertunity to re-register their licence for a fee of $40

Please note that the above changes were implemented by the government in order to begin a nationally regulated licencing system, rather than the state government regulated ones now, which varied from State to State causing problems for people working in more than one state, or moving from state to state.

The new reforms were a recommendation from a private organisation that was employed to review the old system and make suggestions for a reform.

The findings of this organisation were reported and the government held seminnars open to public discussion and feedback in seminars all around the country late last year, with the system being implemented early this year.