I had a good read of these profiles and wonder how many of them who claim to be tradies have actually done any hands on work in the last 20 years.  I know at least 1 that has not and I imagine that there are others. How is this representative of the workforce?

I am not talking about those who run their owwn business and know about stuff on a day to day basis. I'm talking about those who have become office wallers in associated fields

Peter Jackson Director of Site Safe New Zealand, Director and Deputy Chair of the New Zealand Plumbers Merchants and is a trustee of the Apprenticeship Training Trust.


John Simmiss past chair of the PGDRITO and is a past president of Master Plumbers.


Bill Irvine  educator and consultant


Ian Rowe Regional Manager of the National Centre for Tertiary Teaching


Craig O'Connell is the Owner/Director of a Management Consulting firm served as the acting CEO of the PGDB


Graham Hardie owner of River City Gas and New Zealand Gas Group Ltd purpose is to increase practitioner awareness and education



Nick Fleckney He lectures in plumbing, gasfitting and drainlaying at Manukau Institute of Technology. He is the chairperson of the Backflow Group, Water New Zealand



THIS GAME IS RIGGED - I DON'T WANT TO PLAY ANYMORE


decisions are very much predetermined in my mind - master plumbers would no longer exist if they didnt have the income from their upskilling - and as for the suppliers, well its just the cherry on top for them isnt it?!?


no personal offence to the individuals as I guess at the end of the day they are just trying to further themselves in life and they have found an easy way of doing it

hi guys, yes it`s a money making scam and as the saying goes:- `it`s only a scam  if you are not in on it`so they don`t see a problem,cheers

yes craftsman, i too had 2 battles with the board getting them to acknowledge my tradesperson electrical licence upskill done to comply with my ewb licence, they gave me the credits in the end but i had to battle the b....rds to get them twice!

I'm just waiting til they make builders do courses like us. Then there wil be some moaning.

yes peasea, they gave me 8 points too, but they didnt want too the first 2 times.....the thing was that there was me and a mate who did the upskill, so they had to battle 2 of us....its just bs. a upskill from the ewb should simply be acknowledge by a bunch of clowns like pgdb.