The Professional Engineering Act (2002) is unique to Queensland and requires Membership to the Board of Professional Engineers Queensland as an RPEQ to practice as an accountable leader/ manager of engineering providing technical support or direction to a team of engineers as shown below:
Many companies fail to realise the legal requirement they have under legislation and have personnel who are in senior technical positions, without being RPEQ.
What does this mean?
It means that in Queensland they are in breach of the the Professional Engineers Act, which carries a maximum penalty of 1000 units. The number of penalty units will normally have an equivalent jail sentence for people unable or unwilling to pay the fine, or where the judge or magistrate decides a prison term is a more appropriate form of punishment. The penalty unit value in Queensland is $154.80 (current from 1 July 2019).
This means that a financial penalty of $154,800. That's a serious fine.