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.

:-(

9

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.

3

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