What does your business know about product safety standards?
Published10 Apr 1995
by Keith Manch, Fair Trading Manager, Commerce Commission
There are only three product safety standards made compulsory by the Fair Trading Act. Do they apply to your business?
How are standards for electrical goods and services administered? What about standards set by Standards New Zealand (the new name for the Standards Association)?
Many people who need to know, cannot answer these question. And many more have only a vague idea about what the standards require of their businesses.
That is dangerous for customers - particularly for their children - and it can be expensive for the businesses.
Under the Fair Trading Act, one product safety standard covers toys for children aged up to three. Up to that age children do not have a properly developed coughing reflex and if they swallow or inhale an object which sticks in their throat they must be helped or they can choke to death.
Another covers the flammability of night clothes for children aged six months to 14 years. That is, for children from the time they start crawling and can get their clothes into heaters or fires.
The third covers bicycles which can be used on roads. It was introduced after large numbers of cheap, often unsafe, Chinese bicycles were imported.
The Ministry of Commerce administers electrical regulations. The regulations say electrical goods and services must be safe, and the Ministry has published detailed codes of practice explaining how its Inspectors determine if they are safe.
Standards New Zealand sets standards for other products but these are not compulsory. It is to customers' benefit, and it is a legitimate marketing benefit, that these other products comply with standards.
However, toys for children up to three-years-old, night clothes for children aged between six months and 14 years and bicycles for road use must comply with Fair Trading Act product safety standards by law. This applies not only to retailers, but also to distributors, importers, manufacturers and to businesses giving away gifts or prizes.
Fair Trading Act
The Commerce Commission enforces the product safety standards which have been included in the Fair Trading Act. It can chose which matters to investigate and what action to take after an investigation.
We always investigate matters involving product safety standards. The range of action following an investigation is no further action, warning, negotiated settlement and court action. We will take strong action against a breach of a product safety standard.
At the moment the Commission is involved in court action against a nation-wide chain of stores which sold unsafe bicycles. We are also investigating a manufacturer which made toys too small for young children.
Recently more than 20,000 garments were recalled because they did not meet flammability standards for children's night clothes. We also negotiated a settlement with a chain of family restaurants which gave away unsafe toys and prosecuted a nation-wide chain which sold unsafe toys.
While the Commission is always prepared to take enforcement action against breaches of product safety standards, we see prevention as a far better option. Our aim is to achieve compliance with the law. Prosecutions set examples and legal precedents, but they only happen after the law was broken, unsafe goods were sold and customers were put at risk.
Commission Investigators are visiting towns where it has no offices. They are talking to shop owners and mangers and at meetings at Chambers of Commerce, Rotary Clubs and other venues.
What they are finding is most businesses in the toy, clothing and bicycle trades do not know enough about product safety standards to protect themselves and their customers.
Next month (May), with the support of the Retail and Wholesale Merchants Association, we are holding a series of two-day seminars about fair trading issues, focusing on product safety standards. As well as myself and Commission Chairman Dr Alan Bollard, there will be presentations from Standards New Zealand, the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, testing laboratory Industrial Research Ltd and child psychologist Wendy Kelly. Details of the seminars are available from Commission offices.
Free information is available from the Commission. We publish pamphlets outlining the Fair Trading Act and the product safety standards. These are available from Commission offices, the Department of Internal Affairs' Link Centres, Citizens' Advice Bureaux, many lawyers and other organisations.
We are happy to provide speakers for conferences, meetings of trade organisations and other functions.
Businesses can also get independent advice from their lawyers, and several legal publishers print books about the Fair Trading Act. Copies of the Act and the product safety standards - published as separate booklets - can be bought at bookshops or from publishers GP Legislation.
