Together, we’ve been campaigning for a general safety provision in the law for over a decade to prevent unnecessary tragedies caused by unsafe products. After sustained pressure from thousands of people like you, the government is now seriously considering it.
Before they make their decision, they need to know that weak product safety laws are a problem in Australia. They’re seeking your views through this short survey, which asks what your understanding and expectations of product safety are.
By filling out the survey, you’ll be making the case that improving product safety in Australia should be priority and that it’s time for the government to get moving on this issue.
They want to survey the people so they can make a decision if it is worthwhile to change the laws. So the more people who respond the better the results could be as to what steps need to be taken. It could also provide an “out” for them to not make changes. They can at least then say they asked but no changes are needed. My cynical nature about how the results could be used I guess but I actually hope it does bring about changes for the better.
Treasury is trying to understand what people’s expectations and understandings of product safety are. They’re doing this to figure out whether the product safety system should be a priority for law reform or not i.e. whether a problem actually exists. They’ll use the survey results to inform the next stage of this consultation on improving the effectiveness of the product safety system: https://consult.treasury.gov.au/market-and-competition-policy-division-internal/main-consultation/
CHOICE will be writing a submission to this consultation in the coming weeks, and may call on you again to provide your advice.
A little scary really, the questions seemed a bit loaded and ambiguous - who is most responsible for product safety? is that the same as who is most responsible for making a safe product? While it is clear that some products are inherently unsafe and should be the subject of action, it concerns me that the trend towards safety standards and warnings for a vast range of things might increase the tendency to transition peoples mindset further away from any personal responsibility.
You could place a 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 against all the answers, which most would have missed. A bit strange to allow it but I did use it to complete a few with several choices in a question being 1s…
Same here, only allowed one use of each number. Also submitted with no email address given, apparently response ANON # xxxx-xxxx (which I did not note down). With a big long identifier number, is it really anonymous?
Some of the answer options did not seem quite ideal to me as well.
Re who is responsible- Manufacturer first, since they are producing it, regulator next to see if safe to allow onto the market, then down the supply chain to the user at #5. We as consumers should not be the ones to inform regulators or manufacturers about dodgy products!
And since it seems to be consumers (or treating medical staff) who often discover/report these safety issues, the current system is well broken.
You can change the order if you first select ‘Please select’ to cancel the current entry you want to reuse. It is easier to select ‘Please Select’ for all of them and do it again I ‘got there’ from too many years second guessing programmer’s expectations.
I read it as placing numbers 1 to 5 in order from most (1) to least (5)…using every number from 1 to 5 rather than rating for each in the list separately.
If you got the order wrong on page one and progress to page two - try going back to page one without answering all the questions on page two first, for me it insisted I answer all the questions on page two before going back to page one, even if I reset the gradings to ‘please select’.
Fine to validate before going forward a page, but validate and refuse to go back a page?
Coders … dime a dozen, and probably outsourced/offshored/rightshored/whatever …
Oh I understood what they meant but I feel all levels of production, supply, regulation and sales have an almost equal responsibility to ensure safe products. The manufacturer because they make it has a duty of care but may miss an aspect because they haven’t envisaged a certain use or misuse, Suppliers because they should ensure they only supply safe goods ie again a duty of care, Retailers similar to suppliers have a duty of care, regulators because they have a duty to enact the Laws and action them to ensure only safe products reach the market. I note here that safe and guns seems a oxymoron as does knives and safe and many other goods but I take safe to mean here that the goods do not contain faults that lead to unintended consequences when used in an appropriate manner for the type of goods they are (eg the barrel bursting on a gun or lead paint used in a household product, or easy to remove by a child button batteries in a toy).
I ‘got there’ from too many years second guessing programmer’s expectations.
