Australia's Refrigeration and Air Conditioning industry hosts this country's most elite trade, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Mechanics and Apprentices.

Please visit this link and register to attend the Forum in your state to challenge the current training package being pushed onto industry! Australian Industry Standards, Future Skilling, BE Heard, Attend the Forum In Your State!  We Can't Succeed Without Your Support!

 https://www.futureskilling.org.au/register/

We, the Refrigeration and Air Conditioning industry demand a minimum certificate III qualification in refrigeration and air conditioning inclusive of approved additional training hours and natural refrigerants training as core competencies, ensuring future proofing to carry out any refrigeration and air conditioning work and an industry supported certificate II pre-apprenticeship pathway for school students. We further demand the establishment of an independent Industry Refrence Committee for Refrigeration and Air Conditioning.

A part of all Australians, it is the one industry that impacts in all of our daily lives and is the single greatest contributer to energy demands throughout the country. It is also the most neglected UNSAFE and Abused industry in this country, government's around Australia fail to impliment safe licencing, in turn failing to protect every Australian and the tradespeople within the industry. Self proclaimed industry groups such as the Australian Refrigeration Council and it's associated member groups continue to erode the industry of it's highly specialised skilled tradespeople.

We are an industry in crisis, an industry that is being forced to accept UNSAFE training packages developed to appease commercial interests and plumbing and electrical unions, with complete disregard to the safety of all Australian's within the normal course of their lives. Air Conditioning fires are continuing to increase since poor licencing structures were introduced by the Australian Government in 2002 and will continue to increase unles we say NO!

Current draft training packages approved by the Electrotechnology Industry Committee, NOT THE INDUSTRY ITSELF, will be pushed through unless we as an industry SAY NO and demand our most basic right which is to work in a safe environment at all times.

WE demand the Australian government remove the current OUTDATED draft training package from the IRC and allow industry it's rightful duties of ensuring the development of safe training packages for it's tradespeople and apprentices, there have been enough injuries and fatalities. 

Under the proposed draft training packages, the refrigeration and air conditioning certificate III trade qualification will be dumbed down to air conditioning qualifications only and require completion of certificate IV to be qualified as a refrigeration and air conditioning tradesperson. Air conditioning is refrigeration, a point clearly ignored by the elitists professing to represent this trade and their industry.

Contradictory to other trades such as plumbing which have secured additional training hours and appropriate pre-apprenticeship certificate II entry level pathways and also ignored by these representatives is the reduced viability for small businesses in this industry, already struggling with electricians and plumbers carrying out unlicenced air conditioning and/or refrigeration works throughout the country, undercutting the trade qualified with poor quality works.

These elitist self proclaimed groups claim the majority of refrigeration work and business is in air conditioning and that many apprentices learn only split system air conditioning work. What these commercially vested groups don't report is this is a result of poor licencing structures by the Australian government commenced in 2002 in turn leading to many businesses commencing which do not employ trade qualified refrigeration mechanics.