Happy New Year everyone.

The new year is with us and along with the new year will be some very hard decisions one of which is the payment of licensing fees. We have had a turbulent time with fees and levies and the regulation of the industry in general so how long should we continue to support the funding of the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board when there is no proof they are achieving anything of benefit to us. The Federation has voiced its opinion of payment of fees and levies this year and is of the opinion they shouldn't be paid until we are satisfied the Board is operating in a satisfactory manner.

Why is it that it is always the industry that has to pay on time and yet there is no PROVEN benefit and we say proven in that it is purely speculation that the Boards activities protect the health and safety of the public and benefit practitioners by preventing unauthorised people from doing sanity plumbing, gasfitting and drainlaying. The Federation is currently working on legitimate action to be taken at licensing time as a protest measure. We know a lot of people are fearful of action being taken against them buy the Board if they don't license but the People of Kaipra are leading by example and are refusing to pay their rates as a protest action.  They are fighting against a council whom they believe have failed them and we should do the same against a Board whom numerous Government watchdogs have reported are failing. How long do we pay for failure?

We are expected to get it right first time so why shouldn't the Board? If we get it wrong it hits us in the pocket and can cost us our employment.  We pay every year to prove we are competent but yet the Board have over a decade of failure and we are forced to pay for their failures. We say NO MORE and ask you the question ARE YOU GOING TO PAY FEES and LEVIES THIS YEAR?.

We pay for our own competence and expect competence from those that we pay. We also believe that having 5 lawyers to cover your actions is not competence.

We borrowed the following from the people of Kaipra with some modification.

Forget all the high flown principles that are supposed to dictate the way the Board operates. These are the real rules for the Boards rort:
• Practitioners are responsible for everything whether legal or not.
• The public have to be protected at all costs and those cost are ours.
• The Board free-loaders can flout the law and their own policies with utter impunity.
• The watchdogs are deaf, dumb and blind, and stricken with paralysis. They will not interfere.
• Any action taken by the Board even though clearly illegal or in breach of a regulation or policy is deemed to be legal until a court decides otherwise.
• All the agencies of government will join to prevent any action being brought before a court.
• In the rare case that any actions are identified as illegal then Parliament will morph into a Chinese laundry and white-wash and sanitise them.
• All those working in government and closely related fields will support each other and ensure that the Boards gravy train continues unhindered on its journey.





Linkback: https://www.plumbers.nz/licensing-and-up-skilling/45/are-you-going-to-pay-this-years-licensing-fees-and-discipline-levies/1596/

I found a receipt for my licence for 90 odd dollars when having a clean out just the other day, it was for the same year that an explosion nearly killed someone, I paid it three days after this explosion, ironically.

This same explosion was after I had been trying to get the corrupt and incompetent to look at my old boss for over six years previously, then they made me the scape goat. I still believe my old boss was either totally responsible or knows who was responsible for this explosion. My hearing showed yet another fraud in another part of the country, to my knowledge nothing was done about this either (I'll chase this up and let you know).

The thing is, we are financing them to TAKE AWAY our perceived competence, we have been competent for over a 100 years before these clowns took over. Sitting an apprenticeship and looking to our elders for guidance, with a well meaning trade experienced board, with next to no lawyers. How many people could they employ to give us advice and guidance on doing a job instead of paying lawyers to shaft us AFTER the public have potentially put at risk, sometimes nearly killed, but like the board said this wouldn't be cost effective, nice people they are.

The biggest incompetence and illegal actions have been shown by them 10 fold compared to us tradesman (and I mean tradesman, not someone who has decided to pick up a spanner without an apprenticeship, these are not bad plumbers, they are not plumbers full stop), ironically the person protected for the above explosion by these clowns was given his full craftsman license with no apprenticeship sat, then the same clown that held the investigation, this investigating clown (Tony Hammond) is a chemical engineer and hasn't sat an apprenticeship either, but he also has been given his full craftsman gas ticket, to enable him to be an inquisitor for the board.

With the new "random" annual reviews for 150 licenses, you WILL be singled out for treatment, if it suits their agenda....or you can band together and make a stand, or get used to the taste of arse kissing (not my choice), if you think you are "in" it is no protection, corrupt people have no loyalty other than to them selves, totally.

I was the Nelson President of the Master Plumbers, I was told by one of these people at a Master Plumbers Leaders Course, that I was "in", because I had balls.....well mate you didn't give me my balls, they are still there and in the new year I WILL have this situation rectified to my satisfaction, I ain't going nowhere.

I will pay my licencing fee into the Federations Protest Fund.

While your there Watchdog, ask flip flop about the untruth he told in Parliament about Pizza Hut... just days before his rainbow speech.

You're right there Jaxcat.  I believe everything has been tried and the industry has been stonewalled.  The Boards wanting actions are causing the entire situation to escalate. Finding issues with the Board is like cockroach hunting - when you find one there is bound to be more. If we have to stand up for ourselves illegally then so be it but finding legal protest is better.  I'm sure the Federation will come up with something. 

The Board needs to have a close look at the CEO I recon he has been delegated too much power.

In this election year we should call them on all their bullshit and illegality and incompetence and shafting people in a national news paper, listing everything that if it wasn't true then they would set the lawyers on us.

If the public don't know then they won't do anything, if they knew that it costs them too in the charges we have to charge to cover these clowns, the public would have a hernia.