See our bassinets review (member content) to find out which ones pass our strict safety tests and have the features to suit your needs. We also have a bassinet buying guide that may help you decide whether you need one at all, and if so, what to look out for when making a purchase.
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Our bassinet review is now updated:
Watch out, more bassinets have failed our expert safety tests: https://www.choice.com.au/babies-and-kids/baby-furniture/cots/articles/bassinets-fail-safety-tests
Again!!! Where is the mandatory safety requirements that make the unsafe, defective products unable to be imported or made let alone sold here.
Of course we have them but it is still not really enforced. If these items are in the market then mandatory means nothing, it is just as bad as leaving it to the importer’s, retailer’s, manufacturer’s discretion if they bother to make, import, or sell these defective items. Maybe the ACCC should be reimbursing the costs of the testing of the items that are undertaken and financed by CHOICE.
Innocent until proven guilty, safe until proven unsafe, except …?
If it is a motor vehicle? Unable to be sold until it meets all the safety requirements of the Australian Design Rules.
While there may be issues with some of the ADR’s or lack of, at least there is a required critical level for acceptance to permit use on the road.
Avoiding targeted political comment.
If it feels like, sounds like, smells like and tastes like a double standard, who to blame? An inconvenient truth that voting rights and driving entitlements come at a similar age.
Babies don’t vote! 
I see what you are getting at but to be fair vehicles kill many more people each year than cots.
An interesting question to ask each of our elected representatives and party HQ. Which lives do to they put first?
Babies are never in charge of a cot.
Responsible parenting 101?
Is the fundamental consumer question whether a Choice review is the only reliable source when selecting a safe cot?
If that is how it is today the journey started 67 years ago in 1954, still has some way to go.
Especially when I read from the font of Government Wisdom (Product Safety Australia - ACCC) which says in the very first line.
An admission that unsafe products are imported and offered for sale!
Come now, that is a misdirection. I wasn’t talking about comparing one life to another but the risk of harm of one artefact compared to another.
If there are 100,000 artefacts in the environment from button batteries to semi-trailers rationally how do you choose which ones to regulate? Biggest first, oldest first, cutest victims first or most dangerous first?
Accepted as you explained. I was hopeful that was what was intended. 
Is there a fair comparison?
There are frequent examples of products where deficiencies create hazards which can lead to unacceptable levels of risk for young children/babies. EG for products such as Button batteries, prams and strollers, bassinets and cots, high chairs, clothing etc. It’s still too easy as parents or grand parents to unwittingly put our babies and young children at risk.
It’s only through emphasising instances of defects or failings that any action seems to be taken. It is nearly always after the fact, and often the response is insufficient. In many instances the same failings reoccur on a regular basis. Government and the industry/importers seem slow to learn.
It seems the consumer led by organisations such as Choice does all the heavy lifting. It relies on the support of a small fraction of the wider community. Everyone benefits from the efforts of a dedicated small cohort.
Considering what might be fair. There is an argument that the amount of expenditure and effort by government in support of consumer product safety is too little, relative to what the community puts in, or requires. Compared to the support and expenditure for vehicle and road safety, it barely rates a mention.
The Baby/Child product industry has many regulations already in place, perhaps not specifically across every type of product but it should cover most if not all under broader safety requirements. The problem is that it is reactive outcomes to bad products ie not making the sale illegal in the first place and that the testing to ensure compliance is often placed on the consumers or interested organisations such as CHOICE after the products are in the marketplace. The Businesses should be made to pay for the ensuring of compliance before they hit the market with their products. If the products are imported then compliance testing must be undertaken before they are put up for sale.
Often in an attempt to cut “Red Tape” and cost, the safety of products is left dangling until a problem occurs and damage has already occurred to those who thought it must have been safe to buy. Just not good enough.
