Diving age in Australia

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You need to clarify what you mean by "diving age". Cert agencies will let kids as young as 8-10 do their intro to diving type courses (bubblemaker or similar). Individual dive ops will often have their own internal policies about what age you have to be to go on one of their trips though. There's no standard age rule that I am aware of.
 
12 based on friends' recent experiences. Ask the agencies is the best thing to do.
 
Some questions about Australia's legal system. There is an Australia Standard for Recreational Scuba diving that provides:
Australian Standard - AS 4005.1-2000
Training and certification of recreational divers

Part 1: Minimum entry-level SCUBA diving
1.2 OBJECTIVE The objective of this Standard is to specify the organizational and syllabus requirements to train recreational divers to operate safely and competently to a depth of dive of 18 m using SCUBA.
1.6 SELECTION CRITERIA The trainee shall comply with the following requirements:
Be at least 14 years of age. Persons who have reached 12 years of age may in some cases be eligible to train for conditional certification which allows the young person to dive with a certified diver with the consent of parents or guardians.

Is this an industry standard versus a governmental law? It appears that different states in Australia have different laws and regulations (not standards) about diving. Queensland proposed a law last October to drop the age to 10 years for scuba instruction. Is Australia a federalist legal system where if the national government does not have a governing law, then the states can enact their own laws? Is this why I've been told that it is against the law for certain scuba activites in one place in Australia, but not against the law in another part of Australia?
 
Workplace health and safety enforcement comes under state jurisdiction, but they must adhere to national standards when they're in place. Typically, any policies regarding scuba fall under workplace health and safety, ergo, the states set their own policies regarding scuba diving while adhering to any national standard(s). Queensland is notoriously strict (the mandatory snorkel rule that we all like to mock), but having lived there for almost a decade, I do actually appreciate why they're so strict. Lots of people who can't even swim want to go to the GBR and learn to dive. Trying to minimize reputational damage to the broader tourism industry by enforcing what may seem like OTT diving rules.

When I said you can do the bubblemaker type courses at 8-10, that remains true, even in Queensland. But they are not certification courses. They're try-out dives. Even in Queensland you can do this at 8 years old. At 10 years old they will let you do Discover Scuba intro dives. You can enrol in Junior Open Water at 12. Technically. Individual dive shops may set their own stricter policies beyond this. My old LDS wouldn't take you out on their day trip boat if you were under 16.
 
No one seems to have asked you yet but do you have young people wanting to get certified or just try an Open Water dive?

Australia Standards is law and what has to be followed. Workplace Health and Safety is guideline but you would not have a leg to stand in if you didnt follow it.

You cannot do introductory diving or learn to dive in open water, until the age of 12.

Younger than that can be in confined water only.

If already certified as a junior Open Water diver (PADI allow this aged 10 so coming from overseas its normal for us to occassionally get younger certified divers) then they csn still dive open water to the conditions of their certification.

Hope that clarifies it.
 

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