Standards Australia has met with Parliament House in Canberra to address access to Australian standards. They identified accessibility to standards being a critical issue impacting safety, productivity, workforce capability and the delivery of housing and infrastructure that underpins the National Construction Code (NCC).

Standards Australia acknowledges:

• The role of Australian standards in delivering safer, high-quality and consistent construction outcomes
• The longstanding and significant contribution of industry to Australian standards
• The barriers caused by fragmented, outdated and inconsistent access to standards
• The negative impacts on workforce productivity, compliance and the timely delivery of housing, infrastructure and net zero transition
• The shared ambition of the industry and government to life housing supply, improve construction quality and safety, guide the transition to net zero and drive national productivity gains

In response, Standards Australia has agreed to:

• Working collectively to advocate for a national standard access model for the construction sector to eliminate the costs and barriers to accessing standards mandated by laws to create enhanced compliance tools
• Create a model to empower innovation and education, improve compliance, empower practitioners, reduce work and rework and support today’s workforce and the next generation of workers
• Present a unified proposal to government to remove unnecessary barriers to Australian Standards, therefore strengthening the construction sector and unlock productivity gains

By removing the paywall, the change can play an integral role in processing the government’s deregulation and boosting industry productivity.

“The opportunity to work collaboratively with the Government and industry to reduce the upfront cost would provide a substantial red tape reduction boost for the industry and in turn improve the useability and penetration of the NCC and associated Australian Standards,” Standards Australia chief executive Rod Balding says.

“With more innovation and new AI tools coming online, the potential to move to free online standards would also act as an important step towards smarter integrated standards and help support a more fit for purpose regulatory system in 2025 and beyond.”