New bunk bed safety laws
On 8 September 2011, a consultation draft of the Fair Trading (Safety Standards) Regulation 2011 was tabled in Queensland Parliament.
The intention of the regulation is to improve child safety by requiring short-term accommodation premises to comply with a mandatory safety standard for bunk beds.
Mandatory safety standards for the manufacture and supply of bunk beds were introduced in November 2002. These regulations did not apply to existing bunk beds in short term accommodation.
The draft regulation is intended to apply to anyone who provides accommodation services for periods up to 60 days where accommodation is supplied to people 16 years or under.
If the regulation is made, short term accommodation providers will need to ensure that any bunk beds provided as part of their accommodation service comply with the mandatory safety standard prescribed by the regulation.
The safety standard proposed to be prescribed in the regulation is based on specified clauses of the Australian and New Zealand Standard for bunk beds AS/NZS 4220:1994.
It is proposed that under the regulation short-term accommodation providers will have until October 2013 to meet the prescribed safety standard.
To assist you in interpreting the requirements of the new regulation StanCert have developed the attached brochure that can be downloaded from here.