DOCTORS, lawyers and architects all have to be registered.
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Somehow, the people who design bridges, homes and even biomedical body parts have been left out of the loop.
In the wake of the Sydney building crisis, the region's engineers will converge in the electorate of Minister for Better Regulation and Innovation Kevin Anderson to discuss compulsory registration on Thursday.
Engineers Australia (EA) has advocated for engineers to be registered for at least two decades, national public affairs manager Jonathan Russell said.
"Finally we have everyone taking notice," he said.
"Engineering services are complex and there need to be checks and balances in place wherever it is done."
The Design and Building Practitioners Bill will be debated in parliament this month. It would mandate registration of engineers just in the building sector.
To test the public demand for action, EA conducted polls both nationally and in the state.
It showed that nationally 88 per cent of people thought engineers should have to be registered.
In NSW alone, 91 per cent supported mandatory registration.
Labor has introduced the Professional Engineers Registration Bill 2019 that would see the establishment of a system to register all engineers, but Mr Anderson is hesitant to give that his full support.
Mr Anderson's focus is on the building sector given the dramas with Opal and Mascot Towers in Sydney, that saw hundreds evacuated from their homes because of high-rise apartment defects.
EA would prefer to have a standalone bill for the registration of all engineers, but Mr Russell said given its taken so long to get here, messy paperwork is better than none.
"The state government knows it has to register engineers but there's no way to do that at the moment, they still have to create new legislation to make it happen," he said.
"In the same way we don't accept second best on healthcare in regional Australia, we shouldn't in engineering."
Mr Anderson said he would support registration of all engineers but needed to focus on the critical building issue.
"If you do too much too early in registration that will just bog the system down and get stuck," he said.
"It beggars belief, I'm staggered it has not occurred previously so we are getting on with this report.
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"I am absolutely committed to making this happen, it has not happened before ... engineers should be registered but we need to do it in a staged approach to address the critical issues."
The engineers conference will be hosted by EA Tamworth division chair Ben Mobilio, and will see engineers from across the region tune in on the issue.