Welcome to NECA National Office Update for the month of July.This is the first update to be circulated to the NECA National Council and staff in NECA State Chapters in this new format.
This new format will assist in communicating updates from NECA National to National Council members and NECA staff.
Welcome to the July edition of the National Office Update. The Update will now be delivered as an eNews directly to your inbox.
The team in the national office continues to progress work on a wide range of issues affecting our organisation and our industry. We continue to serve our NECA Queensland members in an attempt to grow business in this state.
Some of the bigger news from July was NECA’s decision to back a call for dialogue between the industry and government after their announcement of an employer funded increase to superannuation. Business groups were not consulted by the government before this announcement.
NECA National represented our industry in discussions with key government departments in Canberra to ensure the best interests of our members were preserved.
If you would like more information on any of the items below please contact our office and we’ll happily discuss this with you.
NECA Successful in Employer Broker Program NECA has successfully tendered to be included in the Australian government’s Employer Broker Panel. The program is part of the Federal government’s national employment services system, Job Services Australia. The program is a competitive grants program which commenced on 1 July 2009 and ends on 30 June 2012. As an employer broker NECA can engage with employers in a skilled and labour shortage area to broker solutions that meet employer needs and coordinate and target the efforts of employment service providers to matching the needs of job seekers with the labour requirements of employments. Only employer broker panel members are eligible to apply for funding.
There is currently a closing date of 30 August 2010 for the second range of submissions and NECA WA are working on a submission for this round of grants.
Home Insulation Safety Program (HISP) (non-foil) NECA has continued to provide advice to the Department of Energy Efficiency and Climate Change concerning insulation issues. A recent meeting of parties of the Home Insulation and Safety Program (non-foil inspections) was held in Canberra to discuss safety issues with downlights.
HISP is a large program covering 150,000 house inspections and to date two contracts have been let, one to CSR (using their own employees) and the United Group (using subcontractors) to undertake the inspections.
Where damage has occurred to any part of the electrical installation caused by overheating for example, the rectification work is then expected to be referred to those electrical contractors who are part of the FISP.
EE-Oz Forum re the NBN On 12 July 2010 the CEO gave a presentation to the National Electrocomms and Energy Utilities Summit held in Canberra. There were a range of speakers on the day from the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, NBN, ENA and NECA.
Training and skills were the two most contentious issues discussed especially in relation to the skills that would be required for the fibre optic rollout on electricity network polls where work would be carried out in the 415-volt corridor. Some have called for all this work to only be done by fully trained and qualified linepersons but this is an impractical proposal given the huge amount of work required over the 8 years of the project.
Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy - NBN Co. A further meeting was held with the Assistant Secretary from the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy to further discuss the skills and training requirements for the NBN. This was followed up with a meeting with the General Manager of training strategy for NBN Co. There is still no clear direction on skills requirements and NBN are just about to complete a skills audit of the Australian workforce to further define the needs for this project.
Communications Strategy The National Council was briefed on the communications strategy and support its implementation.
Pollinate The NECA National met with pollinate on Tuesday 6 July 2010 to receive the report on the findings of the market research. A workshop in each State Chapter is required to identify ‘media touchpoints’.
Website NECA National has developed a solution and is now actively working with staff in each State Chapter responsible for the content and administration of website to resolve the problem that allows member only information to be accessed by the public.
Media Relations The NECA National distributed seven media releases in July and conducted six interviews.
Electrical Connections / NECA Magazine Content has been provided to Connection Magazines for the first Electrical Connection magazine that will incorporate the NECA pages. It is expected this publication will be distributed to NECA members in early September.
Marketing and Promotions Advisory Group (MPAG) The MPAG continues to work through the action items on the outcomes list from the May meeting. There have been 5 teleconferences and much work in-between to coordinate a national approach for the Connections trade shows, which is now ready to proceed pending commitment to contribute to shared costs (approx $1800 per state) from the participating states (all except SA).
One of the key activities that the MPAG was tasked with out of the Strategic Objectives was the fuel scheme investigation. This has effectively been abandoned after discussion at Secretariat level considering potential negative effects of opening up discussions with fuel companies.
NECA backs business calls for superannuation dialogue with Government At the general council meeting of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) in Adelaide on 16 July 2010, NECA joined other leading Australian employer and business associations to sign a resolution that called on the need for immediate dialogue to be commenced between business and the government on the proposed increase to the superannuation levy.
NECA is concerned that the Australian government’s announcement on 20 May 2010 that employers would, over the course of the next decade, be required to pay 12% of payroll into employee superannuation in lieu of the current 9% was made without consulting employers.
Workplace Relations and Workplace Health and Safety (IRAG/WHSAG)
NECA’s IRAG consists of representatives of each State Chapter and its role is to provide industrial relations advice and recommendations to the NECA National Council. Much of its work and deliberations over the past 18 months has been concerned with the Fair Work Act and particularly the modern award process. Most members would be aware NECA successfully pursued a national modern award for the electrical and communications contracting industry.
More recently, the IRAG identified a number of problems associated with the modern award and made a successful application to Fair Work Australia to vary the award to:
Provide for trainee apprenticeships for NSW in the new modern award. Trainee apprenticeships have been part of the NSW apprenticeship system for over 25 years but had been left out of the modern award. NECA’s successful application means that NSW employers can once again employ trainee apprentices – they constitute almost 10 per cent of electrical apprentices in NSW.
Ensured that NECA members will be spared the additional cost in providing a kilometre allowance for travel incurred within 50 kms of the registered office or depot where the fares allowances is paid.
The NECA ETAG consists of representatives of each State Chapter and its role is to provide advice and assistance with policy formulation for NECA in the area of vocational education and training. At its most recent meeting on 22 July 2010, a number of current issues were discussed including competency based progression for apprentices; concerns of growing support amongst some government bureaucrats for institutional based training for apprentices (as opposed to the current mix of on/off the job training which NECA strongly supports); the successful piloting of the Diploma of Electrical Project Management in Victoria and plans to commence rolling that out into other states: skills and training requirements arising from the NBN rollout; and the recently announced Senate inquiry into Industry Skills Councils.
ElectroComms Foundation It was decided recently that the Foundation will this year be the sponsor for the Trade Teacher Award, which is a fantastic match for the aims of the Foundation. Chairman Neville Palmer is committed to raising the profile of the Foundation, with a view to increasing the contributions to the Foundation from industry stakeholders.
At a recent meeting in New Zealand with ECANZ, our counterparts, the possibility of delivering the “Site Office to Head Office; Master Electrical Contractor” course over there was explored at length, and with further discussion it is anticipated that we can take this important course overseas.
Recent press surrounding the NBN rollout suggests that the NECA CTAG message of safety first has been taken to heart. Mike Quigley, CEO of NBN Co announced in the press that the rollout would not compromise on safety. CTAG have been working with NBN related groups over the past 12 months and have been consistent in conveying the need for a comprehensive safety planning and implementation platform for the rollout. We are pleased to see that NBN Co have positioned safety as a key priority.
Steplight Pty Ltd A brief meeting with Steplight Pty Ltd was a good trigger to some discussion points around energy auditing. There is scope to develop an EcoSmart Electrician (ESE) branded online energy assessment focussing solely on the energy side of the home, which would be quick and easy to complete and provide a branded and professional report to consumers. This will be feedback for ESE for their consideration and progression if they believe it is appropriate.
NECA Queensland State Manager’s Position Interviews for the Qld State Manager’s position were held recently in Qld. The successful candidate will be announced shortly.
NECA Queensland Membership The following businesses joined NECA Qld in July.
Late membership renewals for 2010/2011 are currently being pursued via a membership renewal campaign.
Apprentice Awards The Apprentice Awards judging was held on Friday 23 July at NHP. The judges advised that all applicants across all categories were extremely impressive and the results were fairly tight.
Excellence Awards A pleasing number of nominations were received this year with finalists consisting of 5 different members over 6 categories offering a reasonable variety of submissions. Judging is currently taking place and the judges have commented on the high standard this year.
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