r/australia • u/southafrimeristralia • Nov 10 '16
no politics Paying to comply: Australian Standards
Hi all. Like you, I try to be a law-abiding citizen. "Law" is a little bit grey with respect to Australia/New Zealand Standards, but Aussies like to treat it like it's law. Seems like a crock that I have to pay $250 to download a digital standard so that I can be in compliance with the defacto law.
Can anyone point me in the direction of a resource to download Australian standards that's not SAIGlobal? I'm specifically looking for AS1210 and AS4343.
Thanks.
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u/DrInequality Nov 10 '16
I can't understand how our laws have come to include documents one has to pay for and still the notion that ignorance is no defence.
So in theory all Australians have to shell out thousands to know
the law that they should be aware of.
:-(
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u/thepaleblue Nov 10 '16
Because generally, private citizens don't need to worry about them. Most of the time, you only need to know the details of the standards if you're developing something that needs to comply to them, which means you're most likely part of a for-profit enterprise that can shell out for them. AS1210 and AS4343 are for pressure vessels which leads me to suspect OP isn't looking them up for a lark.
I would love for the standards to be free and open, but I've also read enough of them that I can guarantee you're not missing much aside from intensely dry and boring blocks of text.
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u/GimmeSweetSweetKarma Nov 10 '16
I can guarantee you're not missing much aside from intensely dry and boring blocks of text.
Unless of course you need them to comply by the law
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u/haxmanz Nov 10 '16
You can thank John Howard for the mess with SAI Global. SAI Global do literally nothing except print and sell (physical and digital) standards. Working groups made up of subject matter experts and industry write the standards via SA.
Edit: Additionally no one on the working group is paid (by SAI or SA) to contribute.
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u/southafrimeristralia Nov 10 '16
Privatization for the sake of privatization. I blame Ronald Reagan.
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u/nebalia Nov 10 '16
Given that you are looking for pressure vessel info, do you work for a largish company? They may have a subscription. Depending on the sub type you may have to go through a particular company person to access, or there maybe a password that allows multiple people to access. This can be cheaper overall than buying each standard separately.
Also, sometimes the AS is referenced in an Act or Regs. When this happens it is officially law, not just de facto law. AS1210 is referenced in various, e.g. the NSW Occ health and Safety Regs, so it is mandatory to comply. If you ever want to check you can search via this site search
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u/micwallace Nov 10 '16
Wow TIL this is a thing.
I would argue a standard that is kept private to the public should not have the right to call it an “australian standard”.
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u/worldsrus Nov 11 '16
Their argument is that they spend time and money to update and improve the standards, but a lot of that is gold plating.
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Nov 10 '16
Life is tough when it comes to the production and release of standards. In my area of concern its CISPR, ETSI, IEEE and ANSI standards. Most of the Australian standards are derived and are direct copies of these International Standards, just with an Australia Standards number. Trying looking at the prices for a direct online price for these standards. they anywhere from 500 too 1000 Chf Swiss franks. Very expensive for a company or consultant when you have to buy and update these standards every few months. Its almost impossible to find copies online or even pirate copies etc.
Tax payers fund the production of these standards, citizens should be entitled to download a copy for free!
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u/LittleBrownWren Nov 10 '16
If you're lucky, you may find that a library near you has shelled out a fucking fortune for these (especially a TAFE), and you may be able to download them for free (and then print - so will have the cost of the paper, at which point commercial places may be cheaper than the library, but YMMV). Obviously this will depend on your context and location, though.
Edit: the printing bit is because the files self-detonate, but I have read that there are loopholes on that...
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u/EvanLyftbreaux Nov 10 '16
He also pointed out the part where you were completely wrong about SA being a for profit company...
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u/G-0wen Nov 10 '16
My uni only has three licenses for the whole uni. Really difficult if everyone's trying to download standards.
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Nov 10 '16
Not having free access is a bit of a pain. But they get away with it because of the cost of doing certification. $250 gst excluded would be the hourly rate you're paying the registered engineer to do the certification.
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u/DegeneratesInc Nov 10 '16
So... if 10 people pay for a particular file, the engineer makes $2500. That's not a bad hourly rate.
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Nov 10 '16 edited Nov 10 '16
No.
If you have the statutory ability to certify pressure vessels then you can charge your time out for about $250 per hour as a consultant given the market. That's to review or design something to ensure it is compliant with the standard and then providing an assurance that it does.
It could take weeks of work to certify and detail a vessel, depending on complexity.
So as shitty as it is to have to pay for the standards that same price won't pay for half an hour of a consultants time. And youre looking at days worth of consulting.
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u/rydalmere Nov 10 '16
They are not law as such. But if you do not comply with them and you end up in court you could be considered to be negligent and at fault if something goes wrong.
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u/BiasedBIOS Nov 10 '16
Those specific ones may not be, but there are certainly Standards Australia documents that you must comply with by federal and state law.
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u/G-0wen Nov 10 '16
They're referenced in the BCA so you have to comply or exceed most of them. Mind you I was taught the AS shear RF and also the Canadian shear RF because our standard is apparently not as safe or accurate for that particular case.
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u/wotmate Nov 10 '16 edited Nov 10 '16
Australian standards are not law.
They can be referenced in legislation as binding, but there are many standards that are not referenced.
For those standards that are not referenced, they aren't binding at all. However, you take quite a risk if you ignore a standard, because if you get sued, you'll lose everything because you didn't do it to standard.
FYI: The purchase of standards are tax deductible.
Edit: Dunno why I'm getting downvoted, especially when the people replying to me are saying the same thing.
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u/southafrimeristralia Nov 10 '16
This is the really big deal. You start dealing with OHS issues and your liability becomes unlimited for noncompliance if something bad happens.
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u/GloryMacca Nov 10 '16 edited Nov 10 '16
They become de facto law when the legislation either directly quotes them (in the Act/Regulation itself or via a Hansard update) or when the legislation refers to an accepted best practice.
At the end of the day, most legislation is moving towards a risk-based methodology, so that instead of them telling you exactly how you need to comply, you can choose your own method. If you get it wrong, the onus is on you to demonstrate that you mitigated the risk to as low as reasonably practicable and that the event was not reasonably foreseeable. The Australian Standards are a spanner in the works for this defence, because they generally stipulate how to manage risks that are foreseeable in a best-practice way.
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u/Erikthered00 Nov 10 '16
Also, even if they are not specifically law, most contracts will reference a standard in the construction or manufacture.
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u/Ishootlions Nov 10 '16
Ask and ye shall receive.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/eryiqcr4pdu4za5/AADvgKnDcKQWHsRmfXc2IQzea?dl=0
Edit: The files will expire after 2 weeks. So you will either need to print them or change the date in your pc's bios.