From about 2002, Australian Quality Training Framework (now reorganised as the Australian Quality Framework) deemed you unable to continue working in your area of expertise and demanded you get certification. Outward Bound instructors with 20 years experience would suddenly find that a neophyte with a certificate was deemed able to direct dangerous rock climbing experiences, while they could only look on in dread.
Certification was a turf fight between different bureaucracies: State versus Federal. Of course, the Federal Government won the battle, as they controlled the purse strings. University qualifications and technical college qualifications, all provided by state institutions, were ignored. A plumber had no need to sit a technical college exam. A federally-approved privately-run Registered Training Organisation (RTO) could provide you with the appropriate certification. It was all too easy. Hand over the money and take the certification test. The hack for a fork lift driver's certificate was to turn over the test paper: the answers were written on the back!
It should have been a national scandal. But, of course, we Aussies are too compliant. And in the end, the federal bureaucrats expanded their empires. I seem angry. And yes I am. Worthless paper certification is hiding the risks being taken with Australia’s future.