Do you pay your own licensing fees TS or does the council sort you out for that? You dont seem too concerned at all about what goes on in the industry and just how much money is actually draining from your pocket to the PGDB compared to say electrical and the EWRB, except to run blokes down on here in your spare time in between seeing trades people on your inspections. Ive been pondering it today and the way you post it sounds like your above all this talk as if fair and equal treatment especially in regard to fees and excessive board expenditure arent a issue for you like they are for others. Which leads me to believe all your costs are covered CPD included by your employer a local district council.

Do you have anything positive to say about the PGDF or ideas about how the PGDB could sharpen up thats going to make me forge a different opinion of your current stance??  Im not trying to be a jerk but its not so easy out there at the moment for some of us tradies in case you guys at your heated council offices havent noticed.....

Got some ideas?? Lets hear your solutions then or other avenues you speak of.... This is an anonymous forum so your safe buddy.

Cheers, rodza 1

The crazy thing is Rodza, I am a stickler for following the code and really got in to this mess by getting off side with the big boys. I got off side with them by trying to tell the same people about the problem who were ultimately responsible for it all, ( by handing licences out willy nilly, to mates ).

I believe in doing a proper job and only got vocal when I repeatedly went to dangerous jobs and I felt for people getting ripped off by a guy who had no experience (or morals) as a tradesman (he sat no apprenticeship, none) but was in all the groups to give him kudos and made people think he knew what he was doing, master plumbers, LPGA, GANZ,NZIGE.......he was adding work to certs I had signed, I showed three examples with added writting after signature to the Board and Kerny called me vextatous......

When I was going to the board to complain I was telling his compardres and enabler's ....and they thought it was Christmas when they could go me........ he "resigned" from NZIGE the following month after the explosion.

But like TS said.... I deserve it for not following protocol  ( which is roughly translated as ...don't rock the boat or we will set our dogs on you, oh and my lack of a brain too), the type of guy they are protecting once drew a line through the word "bedroom" on a building plan and replaced it with "study"....he did this after another tradesman (not me) said "you can't put this heater in a bedroom......he thought he was being smart.....that could be anyone's families house in Nelson.....but I should just shut up and allow this to go on.....but TS... because I am brainless I don't know when to shut up......He also told me it was all about "poker face, just make out you know what your doing" when he hooked up the rads on a C/H system to the hot water ring main, when I asked to see the schmatic because I didn't agree with stagnant water being atomised out of a guys shower making the legonalla bacteria easier to breath in. All told to the Board many years ago but still not acted on, lucky I am as thick as brick and have stallwarts like this guy to guide me. Like I said I got heaps and heaps most in writting, from the Board

The biggest way to fix this all....abide by the New Zealand Law Commission's best recommendations for an impartial industry Board and empty all these conflicts of interest.

Think along these lines and have a good read from the latest Board report.....so many people coming back to serve on the Board who have served before....... that'll work.

the way I see it the Inspectors should be encouraged to get on board with the fed - because at the end of the day the its going to be one or the other - either we have reg/licensing exams coupled with inspections for permitted work - or we have exam + CPD's and self certification - maybe one inspection under DBH for structural/preline/postline/COC - the country and industry is not big enough to warrant/justify/sustain everything...

sorry.....a typo, they didn't make any new industry, they hijacked an existing industry board, moved it from a small house with about 3 people to a mirrored skyscraper protected by a gaggle of lawyers, then told us they needed money to fund the said skyscaper and law team.....blatent.

And they act with impunity hiding behind laws and acts that were set up in good faith, which are now twisted in to their desired direction.....

I have had a pearler of a reply from them, watch this space. It is 33 pages long, you won't believe what they have commited to writing and said they have no problem with, going to take me awhile to work through.

Thing is mate we have a Mafia style organisation, "you f**** with us and you sleep with the fishes", try leaving and we'll knee cap you, etc

One of their lawyers was at a public relations (lol) meeting and when asked" why does the cost of running a register, etc cost so much?" the smug lawyer then said ....and I kid you not....."have you seen how much lawyers charge", then proceeded to boast how they had a 100% conviction rate and that the last time they went to court someone said "oh no here come the plumbing mafia" she said it like she was proud of that comment.

You got to remember Robbo, that they are not their for us in any way (unless your in with them) we are their cash cow that funds their lavish life style.

hi guys, The pgdb, are 100% funded by registered/licensed tradesmen. All the time we continue to fund them they will carry on doing what they want whether we like it or not. We make official complaints they answer with spin to drag the chain, all the while the minister with the blessing of the govt continue to ignore us with more spin. If the govt could see that streamlining the operation would save money it would support us but they are not paying so they do not bother, just agree with the pgdb that the spin is working.  One of the only actions that would make the govt intervene would be if the pgdb could not operate because of no funds coming in(I won`t mention the other actions I may get arrested)this would make it take a serious look at what has been going on then things would happen, the first I would imagine would be the minister getting kicked firmly into touch. An immediate pacification of  all tradesmen to get the ship back on course with some obvious changes to the act/regulations  taking place, so I say that until we stop funding this cost plus organisation nothing will change to stop the runaway and out of control  freight train, cheers   

hi guys, yes Jax a lot more guys now not picking up licences, wheather they are working or not the trend has been set and is there for all to see and started with C.B.L. for gasfitters where a lot of plumber/gasfitters just dropped the gasfitting,cheers

Yes Thunder, but if there is a way to work the system then it should be used to allow those with holding their fees to still work legally and there is some wiggle room in their Board's own system to have your application heard by the Board - this could take 1 - 2 months but if everyone did it - it would have the net effect of with holding money which they need, but not putting yourself at risk of prosecution.  Still fine tuning and looking at options here