What you will be able to do
- Explain how AS/NZS 3000:2018 and its amendments become binding in each state and territory, and where WA, Victoria and the network rules add to it
- Say who carries each part of an installation: the designer, the electrical contractor, the network and the inspector
- Decide whether a design can use Part 2 deemed to comply methods, and what a Part 1 design needs in Victoria and Western Australia
- Tell an alteration from a repair, and say what each triggers
- Apply basic, fault and additional protection, and calculate a prospective touch voltage
- Work from the supply the network gives you: voltage, prospective fault level, consumer mains and the MEN connection
- Coordinate a protective device with a cable, and size a circuit for current, voltage drop and fault loop together
- Calculate maximum earth fault-loop impedance and maximum route length on the mean tripping current basis used in Australian guidance
- Decide where a 30 mA RCD is required, and pick a type that suits the load, now that Type AC is barred
- Earth and bond a radio site or comms room, including the telecommunications earth
- Design generator, inverter, solar and battery connections that keep the MEN intact and the RCDs effective
- Specify verification: the mandatory tests, their order, the limits and the records, and each state’s certificate
Syllabus
- 1 What the Wiring Rules are, and how they become law Free preview
- 2 Part 2, a Part 1 design, and the difference between an alteration and a repair
- 3 The fundamental principles, and the touch voltage behind them
- 4 Check: the framework and the principles
- 5 What the network gives you: voltage, fault level and the MEN
- 6 Maximum demand and the circuit arrangement
- 7 Overcurrent protection: coordinating the device with the cable
- 8 Cable selection and voltage drop, on a 250 metre run to the hut
- 9 Check: supply, demand, protection and cable sizing
- 10 Earthing, the MEN connection, and the telecommunications earth
- 11 Automatic disconnection: the fault loop and the 0.4 second circuits
- 12 RCDs: where they are required, and which type will actually trip
- 13 Check: earthing, disconnection and RCDs
- 14 Switchboards: suitability, arcing faults, and what inspectors find
- 15 Wiring systems: external influences, segregation and underground runs
- 16 Generators, UPS, solar and batteries: keeping the MEN intact
- 17 Special installations: which other standard takes over
- 18 Verification: the inspection, the tests, the records and the certificate
- 19 Site walk: the radio hut before handover
- 20 Final assessment
Read the first unit
Free, no account neededWhat the Wiring Rules are, and how they become law
You are specifying the power for a new radio site: a hut on a ridge, a pole transformer at the gate, rectifiers, air conditioning, a generator inlet and some solar. Every decision you make about that supply is measured against AS/NZS 3000, the Australian and New Zealand Wiring Rules. On its own it is a standard like any other. What makes it different is that every state and territory has written it into law, and several of those laws reach the person who designs the installation, not only the electrician who builds it.
The document you are designing to
The current edition is AS/NZS 3000:2018, published on 26 June 2018. Standards Australia describes its two parts this way: Part 1 sets out "the minimum regulatory requirements for a safe electrical installation", and Part 2 gives work methods and installation practices that are deemed to comply with Part 1. Since 2018 it has been amended three times and ruled on once.
| Document | Published | What it changed |
|---|---|---|
| AS/NZS 3000:2018 | 26 June 2018 | The base edition: Part 1 and Part 2 |
| Amendment 1 | 31 January 2020 | Among other changes, references to AS/NZS 5139 for battery systems |
| Amendment 2 | 30 April 2021 | RCD types and where RCDs are required (2.6), switchboard suitability (2.10.3.2) and the testing clauses of Section 8, including a new 8.3.2.2 on recording results |
| Amendment 3 | 19 May 2023 | Clauses including 1.5.5.4, 2.5.5.1 and 2.5.5.2 (switchboard internal arcing faults), 2.10.1 and 2.10.3.1 to 2.10.3.3 (switchboards), 3.4.1, 3.8.1 and 3.15 |
| Ruling 1:2024 | 24 May 2024 | How the Exception in clause 2.6.3.2.3.2 (where an RCD may be located) is triggered |
How each state and territory makes it law
There is no national electrical safety law for installations. Each jurisdiction adopts the Rules in its own instrument, and the wording matters. Most adopt AS/NZS 3000 "as amended from time to time", so an amendment binds you once it takes effect without any change to the law. NSW and WA name the 2018 edition, and NSW adds "as in force from time to time".
| Where | Instrument | How the Rules are adopted |
|---|---|---|
| Queensland | Electrical Safety Regulation 2026, in force 1 September 2026 | AS/NZS 3000 "as amended from time to time, and as remade from time to time" (s 9). The worker must ensure the installation, to the extent the work affects it, complies (s 191). |
| New South Wales | Gas and Electricity (Consumer Safety) Regulation 2018 | From 1 January 2019, AS/NZS 3000:2018 "as in force from time to time" (cl 3). Installation work must be carried out in accordance with it (cl 34(3)). |
| Victoria | Electricity Safety (General) Regulations 2019 | AS/NZS 3000 "as published or amended from time to time" (reg 105), and installations must comply with Part 2 (reg 202). |
| Western Australia | Electricity (Licensing) Regulations 1991 | AS/NZS 3000:2018 plus the WA Electrical Requirements, which prevail where the two are inconsistent (regs 3 and 49). |
| South Australia | Electricity (General) Regulations 2012 | Installations must be "designed, installed, operated and maintained" to comply with AS/NZS 3000 (reg 55). |
| Tasmania | Occupational Licensing (Electrical Work) Regulations 2018 | Regulation 3 defines AS 3000 as AS/NZS 3000 "as amended from time to time". The duty to comply sits in Tasmania’s codes of practice for electrical work, which this course does not quote. |
| ACT | Electricity Safety Act 1971 | AS/NZS 3000 "as in force from time to time" (dictionary), plus any ACT Appendix, which may vary, add to or exclude parts of it (s 3B). |
| Northern Territory | Electrical Safety Regulations 2024 | AS/NZS 3000 "as amended from time to time" (reg 3), and work must be performed in accordance with it (reg 85). |
Who carries what
- What the law asks
- Design the installation to be electrically safe and to comply (Qld Electrical Safety Act s 31, WA reg 49A, SA reg 55)
- Typical outputs
- Maximum demand, single line diagram, cable and protection schedule, earthing design
- Licence or registration
- No electrical licence for design, but engineering registration in Qld (RPEQ) and Victoria, and in NSW for class 2, 3 and 9c buildings
- What the law asks
- Do the work to the Rules, test it before it is connected, and certify it
- Typical outputs
- The installed work, test results and the state’s certificate
- Licence or registration
- An electrical contractor’s licence, with licensed workers
- What the law asks
- Set the conditions of connection in its service and installation rules
- Typical outputs
- Approved supply capacity, fault level to design for, metering and MEN rules
- Licence or registration
- Not applicable
- What the law asks
- Inspect where the law requires it: before connection for Queensland’s accredited auditors, within 8 business days of completion for Victoria’s prescribed work
- Typical outputs
- A certificate of inspection, or a defect notice
- Licence or registration
- Victoria’s licensed electrical inspectors; Queensland’s accredited auditors for high voltage and hazardous areas
How this course uses the Wiring Rules
AS/NZS 3000 is copyright and sold by Standards Australia, so this course does not reproduce it. Clause numbers and headings come from the contents list Standards Australia publishes. Where a regulator has published the text of a requirement (WorkSafe Queensland’s guides do so with Standards Australia’s permission), the course states the requirement in its own words and names the regulator. WorkSafe Queensland’s 2026 guides to testing and to alternate supplies, Access Canberra’s Electrical Notes and the advisory notes of the Electrical Regulatory Authorities Council (ERAC) are the main ones. Everywhere else the course names the clause and teaches the reasoning.
Who carries it?
Put each task with the party the law or the network rules give it to.
Providing information on how the installation is to be installed, with a design handed to someone else
The remaining 19 units cover Part 2, a Part 1 design, and the difference between an alteration and a repair, The fundamental principles, and the touch voltage behind them, Check: the framework and the principles and more.
How it works
- Read each unit at your own pace, on any device. Progress is saved to your account.
- Answer the graded questions. You can re-sit any unit, and your best attempt counts.
- Pass the module and a certificate of completion is issued with a verifiable serial.
This is professional development, not a nationally recognised qualification. noIM₃ is not a registered training organisation.