Hey mate, hopefully you could tell from my post that the current...

Hey mate, hopefully you could tell from my post that the current arrangements are BS!!

The power needs to be in the hands of the customer, ie. input an ombudsman with real teeth (aka not the telecommunications ombudsman!).
And, I'll throw my hand up and say the ombudsman might not be the answer, but an independent 3rd party whose job it is to uphold standards (and whom has power and has resources) would be a pretty powerful first step.

Even if they then put a register up, where we could see all listed tradies and their history... Wouldn't take long for poor practices to be kicked to the kerb.

I'm not defending current practices, but in the interest of having a fact based discussion I did just look up current pay rates for apprentices and a first year chippy on a 4yr full time apprenticeship is on $499 per week.... at $26k per year I'd hardly say they are rolling in it. It does stagger upwards from there as they get further into their apprenticeship. I'm not saying that's the same for all trades, but I can't imagine there's huge variation.
And YES, I absolutely think they are charging like wounded bulls the last 10-15 years so I've been doing the odd minor plumbing/electrical work myself also!