Skills eFlash #140 New

Date: 15-Oct-2025

In this edition: Operator Awards | Updated Card Courses | HPWJ Training | Water Industry Apprenticeship Feasibility Study | Remodelling the NWP and much more!

Last Chance to Nominate – Operator Awards Close This Friday!

Time’s running out! Nominations for the Young Operator of the Year and Operator of the Year (Civil / Allrounder) close this Friday, 17 October – so if you haven’t submitted yours yet, now’s the time to act!

The nomination forms are quick and easy, and just a few minutes of your time could mean a huge reward for one of your team members with prizes including $1,500 towards professional development and an all-expenses-paid trip to New Zealand as part of the WIOA Delegation Tour.

Let’s celebrate the hard work and dedication of our operators – they deserve it! Submit your nominations online:

Updated Card Courses Now Live on watertraining.com.au

We’re excited to announce that updated versions of all our Card courses are now available on watertraining.com.au. These refreshed courses offer improved content and functionality to better support your teams working on water assets.

To ensure free access, learners must use their work email address associated with a qldwater member organisation. All system rules have been updated to automatically enrol eligible users into the new courses. Please remind your staff to use their work emails when registering.

If you encounter any issues with logging in or accessing the courses, contact us at skills@qldwater.com.au and we’ll be happy to assist.

Our Card courses are ideal for onboarding new starters and refreshing existing staff on their responsibilities. The updated series includes:

Aqua Card – Understand your role when working on or near water infrastructure.
Brown Card – Learn your responsibilities around wastewater and recycled water infrastructure.
Green Card – Discover how to minimise environmental harm when working near water, sewerage, and recycled water assets.
Grey Card – Gain essential knowledge on managing asbestos cement pipes safely.
Teal Card – Master water sampling techniques for accurate and reliable analysis.

Learners with expired certificates have been notified via email and provided with direct links to the new courses. We’ve also updated the homepage links to reflect the changes.

We apologise for any inconvenience caused by earlier issues where some users were directed to outdated course pages. These have now been resolved.

High Pressure Water Jetting – Regional Success and Regulatory Progress

Over three intensive days, operators from Mackay and Isaac Regional Councils completed the High Pressure Water Jetting (HPWJ) program, showing outstanding teamwork and commitment to safety. Coordinating this delivery across both councils was a huge effort — congratulations to everyone involved!

Importantly, feedback from all these regional HPWJ sessions has helped drive an important regulatory review. qldwater is now working with the Department of Industrial Relations (OIR) to raise the current exemption limit for pressure jetting on asbestos cement mains from 120 bar to between 207 and 276 bar for trailer-based units with flow rates between 35 and 130 L/min.

This outcome highlights exactly what the Water Skills Partnership was created for — bringing councils together, identifying shared challenges, and turning operator feedback into real, system-level change.

Next Stop: South West Queensland – HPWJ Training

Our next round of High Pressure Water Jetting (HPWJ) training is heading to the South West Queensland Water and Sewerage Alliance QWRAP region. We’re thrilled to bring this program to another part of the state that continues to grapple with the legacy of asbestos-cement assets.

It’s a region that knows the meaning of teamwork — and what better day to prove it than Melbourne Cup Day! While the rest of the country is watching the race that stops a nation, our operators will be focused on the pressure that keeps our networks running!

This session will continue building on the incredible momentum from the Mackay and Isaac deliveries — strengthening safety, compliance, and operator confidence across Queensland.

Water Industry Apprenticeship Feasibility Study

The joint statement to Minister Giles regarding a feasibility study into a dedicated Water Industry Apprenticeship has now been formally submitted. This statement, supported by key industry partners, calls for the study to be commissioned as a stand-alone project through BuildSkills Australia, rather than folded into broader review.

The water industry is unique — our operators manage essential services that protect public health and environmental safety every day, across some of the most geographically dispersed communities in Australia. A generalised approach simply won’t capture the specialised skills, compliance requirements, and operational risks faced by our workforce.

We hope to receive a response from the Minister in the coming week and remain optimistic that he will recognise how critical this work is to securing the future of our sector. A properly scoped study, with the depth, detail, and dedicated focus the industry deserves, would be a major step toward establishing a true trade-level pathway for water operators.

Remodelling the National Water Package

Work is now underway to remodel the National Water Training Package (NWP) — using the existing units as a foundation to build a clearer, more practical framework that reflects the real work of water operators.

This project will align with the latest Australian Skills Framework and aims to simplify how operators, RTOs, and supervisors identify what competence looks like on the ground. The goal is a package that’s fit for purpose, easier to navigate, and supports both a three-year apprenticeship model and flexible regional delivery options.

We’re confident that, as a community, we can solve the problems of the current clunky package and hopefully negate the feet-dragging that has held progress back.

If you’d like to be part of this project or contribute your experience, please email Sarah — your input will help shape the next generation of training for our industry.

AWA Water e-Journal Research Showcase

The Australian Water Association (AWA) is seeking student projects from across the country to showcase in the AWA's annual Current magazine.

The AWA Water e-Journal Student Research Showcase gives current or recent tertiary students an opportunity to present a brief summary of their research projects (in progress or completed in 2025) directly to the water industry.

Submissions should be made through the Scholastica portal and include a brief summary of the research project (250-500 words) and a graphical presentation of the topic. Projects must be submitted by Friday 19 December 2025.

Students may also have the opportunity to speak to water professionals about their projects at a special session at Ozwater'26 in Brisbane.