The reasoning is often “people might contaminate the water supply for a whole street!” Which just points to poor provision of one way valves at the property line.
But yeah, illegal.
I agree there are limits with what you want to do on electricity, but turning the breaker off and replacing a light fitting or light switch is pretty trivial. And I know people do just get on with it and do some of this stuff themselves anyway.
Was particularly pissed off that in January this year the plumbing “protections” were extended to rural residents who aren’t even connected to mains water or sewage, to protect us from substandard work by … making it illegal for us to do it ourselves. Highly annoying.
A lot of laws can be interpreted as reccomendations :)
Total rort.
I assume that in your post "WA" means Western Australia -- as I can't imagine this kind of absurd protectionism law flying in Washington state, even though it's a little more paternalistic than average for the US.
And of course not! As mentioned - the rule has even recently been extended to 'protect' people like us who live semi off-grid, with rainwater capture for drinking and a septic system.
Australians really seem to loooooove rules.
And of course, for the most part, nobody's actually checking this stuff and people pay varying levels of attention to the rules. Seems like a waste of time all round.
Electrical work can be pretty dangerous...