Have your say: Technical Standards

Technical Standards Next Committee Meeting: 22 MARCH, SYDNEY The NRA’s Technical Standards Committee is a group of quality assurance and product compliance specialists who come together from many of Australia’s retail businesses to discuss the challenges of product safety and compliance. The Committee is an important forum for the development of retail industry policy. It communicates regularly, […]

Bicycle safety standards review – call for submissions

Bicycles in Australia are currently regulated by a mandatory safety standard that sets out requirements for braking, steering function, reflectors, bells, identification markers and user guidance. In addition to the mandatory standard all State and Territory road rules require bicycles to have a brake, reflectors and a bell. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) […]

Product Safety – A Guide to Testing

Australian Consumer Law (ACL) dictates that businesses operating in Australia must ensure the consumer products that they sell meet mandatory safety standards, are fit for their intended purpose and safe. One way of determining this is for products to be tested to show they meet the necessary standards. If a product fails any of these […]

Product Safety: Button battery supply

If you sell any products with button batteries in them, safety is your responsibility. In Australia, an estimated 4 children per week present to an emergency department with an injury related to a button battery. Button batteries present a hazard wherever they have prolonged local contact with the body, whether they are ingested or inserted […]

Are you GHS ready?

The Globally Harmonised System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (GHS) is a United Nations effort to internationally standardise chemical classication, labelling and safety data sheets (SDS) in the workplace.  The GHS uses a common set of pictograms, signal words and hazard warnings to universalise classifications. Australia adopted the third revised edition of the GHS […]

Pre-Christmas Toy Safety Checks

NSW Fair Trading recently commenced its annual pre-Christmas toy safety checks targeting suburbs and towns across the State. Discount stores and ‘pop-up kiosk’ traders will be a focus with inspections continuing for several weeks. Fair Trading Commissioner Rod Stowe said kiosk traders tend to be direct importers, securing their products via the internet. “They generally […]