explanatory Statement
Consumer Protection Notice No. 12 of 2007
Issued by the Authority of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer
Trade Practices Act 1974
Consumer Product Safety Standards – Child Restraint Systems for use in motor vehicles
Subsection 65E(1) of the Trade Practices Act 1974 (the Act) provides that the Minister may, by notice in writing, declare that, in respect of goods of a kind specified in the notice, a particular standard, or a particular part of a standard, prepared or approved by Standards Australia, with additions or variations specified in the notice, is a consumer product safety standard for the purposes of section 65C.
Paragraph 65C(1)(a) of the Act provides that a corporation shall not, in trade or commerce, supply goods that are intended to be used, or are of a kind likely to be used, by a consumer, if the goods are of a kind in respect of which there is a consumer product safety standard and they do not comply with that standard.
This instrument declares the 1995, 2000 and 2004 versions of the Australian Standard for motor vehicle child restraints AS 1754, as varied, to be consumer product safety standards for the purposes of section 65C. The purpose of these safety standards is to ensure that child restraints supplied on the Australian market have key safety features that reduce the associated risks of injury to/death of a child while travelling in a motor vehicle.
These Australian Standards specify minimum design, construction and performance requirements for child restraints in order to promote the provision of a high level of protection for children placed in them. Requirements for informative labelling, instructions, marking and packaging are also specified.
The consumer product safety standards were previously declared by Consumer Protection Notice No. 5 of 2007 following the completion of a comprehensive Regulation Impact Statement process in May 2007 that identified the product safety issues and considered the various options for addressing the issues. A draft of the RIS was duly circulated for consideration by interested parties including manufacturers/suppliers of child restraints, State and Territory fair trading/consumer affairs agencies, consumer groups and child safety specialists. All parties strongly supported the Commonwealth’s proposal to continue to regulate the supply of this product based on a revision/update of the current mandatory standard.
It has since become apparent that there are difficulties in the implementation of the consumer product safety standards due to the unintentional inclusion of an endnote in Consumer Protection Notice No. 5. The endnote indicates that a choice of Australian Standard is applicable to goods supplied from 1 October 2007. Legal advice is that the presence of the endnote creates uncertainty and may impact on the validity of the instrument.
The present Consumer Protection Notice addresses the implementation problem by revoking Consumer Protection Notice No. 5 and declaring the same set of consumer product safety standards without the endnote.
The declaration of these consumer product safety standards is a legislative instrument for the purposes of the Legislative Instruments Act 2003.
The declaration commences on the day after it is registered on the Federal Register of Legislative Instruments.