[ajdlinux]

There's only one state in Australia that has mandatory registration of engineers. There are several more states that are currently starting up mandatory registration schemes, and of course the national professional bodies operate voluntary registration and accreditation schemes.

Now of course that doesn't mean that you can just start building bridges as a non-accredited engineer, I expect the courts would look unkindly on you in a negligence lawsuit if your company had engineers that couldn't demonstrate their professional qualifications and development.

This is seen as a problem and the professional bodies are pushing more states to adopt mandatory registration, so we'll see more of that in the next few years, but it's not like Australia is a land where bridges fall down weekly without mandatory registration.