Australia - ACMA Open/Restricted Cabling Registration

Sysadmin/network eng from Australia here,

​

Wondering if anybody has some experience regarding the ACMA Registrations for Open/Restricted Cabling Registration. I work in an organisation that, due to its nature, requires a lot of re-hauling and retrofitting of data cable through the buildings they own and wiring up the MDF of these buildings. We have some electricians on-staff, but none in my state are ACMA Registered and generally want me to do the data stuff, because I'm the one who at the end of the day, is responsible for plugging it into the switch and making sure it works for the end user.

I want to get the license/registration to do this properly, but the requirements seem a bit convoluted:https://www.acma.gov.au/publications/2019-06/guide/pathways-cabling-registration

For Restricted Registration, you need to do a handful of prerequisite qualifications, a registration test, plus 80 hours of cabling experience. For Open Registration, the same, but 360 hours of experience. On top of this, there are requirements around who can sign off on this experience:

Unregistered cablers, who are undertaking telecommunications customer cabling work to gain experience, must be directly supervised by an appropriately registered cabler. Under the ACMA supervision rule, the registered cabler must accept full responsibility for the telecommunications customer cabling work undertaken by the unregistered cabler and must ensure that it fully complies with the wiring rules (AS/CA S009:2013 or its replacement), including completing the TCA1 form.

Additionally...

A person who intentionally or recklessly contravenes the ACMA’s cabling regulatory requirements for CPRs is guilty of an offence punishable by a $2,040 on-the-spot fine issued by an ACMA inspector, or on conviction by a court, a fine of up to $90,00

​

So, unless your organisation already has an ACMA registered data cabler to sign off your experience, how are you supposed to qualify to become one in the first place? It seems you either need to hire a contractor who has ACMA registration, just to come in and sign off on your cabling and experience log book until you have 80 hours, or go do a month long traineeship somewhere else where an ACMA registered cabler already exists.