Petition to open/reform Australian Standards availability

[John B]

https://www.aph.gov.au/e-petitions/petition/EN4101

There's a petition to address the high cost of the Australian Standards, where buildings, tools, products, vehicles and all manner of products are required to abide by these standards as law, but you are required to purchase them to know what they are. For tradesmen, small businesses or manufacturers, multiple volumes of standards are needed to ensure you have all applicable standards, not to mention they have to be the latest versions. These represent an ongoing cost providing little value for money, as subsequent versions of standards often have minimal changes.

So in the interests of the edification of the population, giving people knowledge to protect them in consumer matters (for example, buying houses and property) and to encourage innovation by reducing the manufacturing overheads of small businesses, I've added my signature.

[Brumby]

I've added mine as well.

I would urge all Australians to consider doing so as well.

[EEVblog]

Great idea, if you think so too, please sign.
This would for exampel incude the mains wiring standards amounds hundreds of others of value to the engineering community.
https://www.aph.gov.au/e-petitions/petition/EN4101/

[gamalot]

I signed it.

Can anyone sign? I am not yet an Australian citizen and hold permanent resident status.

[SmallCog]

I signed it.

Can anyone sign? I am not yet an Australian citizen and hold permanent resident status.

Declaration at the bottom is “I declare that I am a resident or citizen of Australia and I am not a current Member of the House of Representatives.”

I just signed it

[voltsandjolts]

"restrictions on accessibility are increasing"
This is so true.
e.g. You can't share with anyone at your workplace, it's YOUR copy only. Don't put it on a network drive, or you become the devil.
e.g. Print a few pages for reference and the text is barely legible (deliberately obfuscated), to the point I get a sore head trying to read it. WTF.

Customer hostile business practices are becoming so damn common place, at least this petition tries to fight back.
But the cash cow will never be sacrificed.
Not. Gonna. Happen.

[Brumby]

Not. Gonna. Happen.

I bet that has been said about a LOT of changes that DID happen.

You just have to make enough noise.


I've added my couple of dB.

[vk3yedotcom]

Currently technical standards in Australia are a bit of a 'closed shop'.

If you think they should be free or low cost (after all you can't adhere to rules you can't access) then sign this petition.

The petition comes recommended to me via the Institute of Transportation Engineers (Aust/NZ) but will also be relevant for those in electronics.

https://www.aph.gov.au/e-petitions/petition/EN4101

[Bud]

There is a thread for it exist already.

[vk3yedotcom]

So there is

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/peition-to-open-the-australian-standards/msg4124695/

[vk3yedotcom]

As it's election season could be worth requesting support from your MP and candidates once you've signed the petition.

MPs list here: https://www.aph.gov.au/Senators_and_Members/Members

[Halcyon]

I merged all the duplicate topics so I apologise for the repeats in URLs etc...

Whilst this doesn't impact me directly as I currently have free access to Australian Standards, I do find it a bit weird that other users are charged so much for what should be open information (particularly if there are laws and rules professionals must follow in order to comply). Needless to say, I've added my signature to this cause as it definitely is worthy of looking into.

[tom66]

Similar problem in the EU was that it was nearly impossible to get 'EN' standards without paying 100's of euros per document.

Then the Estonians decided to undercut everyone and you could buy individual documents for a few euros each, as of course they had full access due to being an EU member.  Beautiful.

Sadly not possible if Australia is the only issuing agency!

[John B]

Currently this petition seems to be pulling in a couple of thousand signatures per day. Usually it's hard to get any traction with Australians politically. This must have tapped into an previously unknown voting bloc, the pissed off building sector demographic.

[EEVblog]

[james_s]

Currently this petition seems to be pulling in a couple of thousand signatures per day. Usually it's hard to get any traction with Australians politically. This must have tapped into an previously unknown voting bloc, the pissed off building sector demographic.

Hell it pisses me off and I'm not even Australian, I've never even visited, this kind of thing just pisses me off in general. Obviously I'm not eligible to sign the petition anyway though.

[Black Phoenix]

I'm not Australian so I'm not elegible for but I would sight without batting an eye since I know very well how in EU it works and it's the same. Want the documents? You have to pay.

[Eric L.]

I would love to sign, but as I am from Europe I am not eligible. However, I fully support this petition and hope for positive outcome.

[Ed.Kloonk]

Whilst I support the idea in principle, the fear is this information enables the idiots. The AS3000 is good in that they do fill the volume with explanation on why the changes were necessary (for obvious reasons). It's only a select few not directly requiring access to the standard all the time can comprehend the information.

The Plumbing/drainage one is problematic because the tome doesn't teach you about the basics of bacteria protection. Just how to prevent it. If you need these standards for a once off, then you should be hiring someone who has paid for the access and therefore probably more in a position to advise you.

[ssander]

Had a licensed electrician fit a circuit breaker to a final subcircuit on a meter board they were replacing. The original board was from the '80s. The board contained the electrical meters, circuits for townhouses, and circuits for common property lighting and GPOs.

Access to the wiring standards would have been really handy.

[Ed.Kloonk]

Had a licensed electrician fit a circuit breaker to a final subcircuit on a meter board they were replacing. The original board was from the '80s. The board contained the electrical meters, circuits for townhouses, and circuits for common property lighting and GPOs.

Access to the wiring standards would have been really handy.

The electrician didn't have a copy?

[hamdi.tn]

Excellent initiative 

Same here in EU, if you need to design a product and be sure that it comply with whatever applicable standard you have to buy 10 of those as each one will refer to another one.

 

[ssander]

The electrician didn't have a copy?

The electrician knew what they were doing, they demonstrated that on another meter board at the same complex.

Without access to the standard, it makes it difficult to reference the standard and show non-compliance.

[SmallCog]

The electrician didn't have a copy?

The electrician knew what they were doing, they demonstrated that on another meter board at the same complex.

Without access to the standard, it makes it difficult to reference the standard and show non-compliance.

Agreed.

It's very useful to be able to reference a standard to make sure that the work that has been done to that standard is actually to that standard.

I currently have educational access via the library at the college I'm studying at. I'm seriously considering finding cheap useless courses just to keep this access.

[DeanA]

Signed.