Submission to Productivity Commission  on Standards and Accreditation Study 
I am a Building Designer and have been a participant in the Architectural Industry for 35 years.
To be able to carry out work in this area it is necessary to have a reasonable knowledge of the required Standards relating to many Building Standards which are also referenced in our Specifications which accompany a building contract.
It has remained a frustration for me and fellow designers at the lack of clear ACCESS to Standards.
I am a sole trader on limited income but have always found that access to Standards is frustrating and made difficult to access by the following issues 
1 The Standards are continually changing so if you purchase a Standard this year it will be out of date by the following year due to revisions. In fact if you purchase the BCA on disc it has an inbuilt time line of one year after which time it switches off and you cant access it.
There should be a free access to Australian Standards. Standards by their nature, are the minimum standard that is expected by society for the system the Standard is referring to and which the activity should perform at.
So a carpenter, a plumber, an electrician - any tradesperson and indeed any home handyman - any person wishing to carry out works in any sphere should have open, easy access to Standards-they are the expected minimum standard and so it is therefore essential for the preservation of Standards that they be made accessible to all. –they should be available for free on a government website where if required they are continually kept up to date.
It is just not acceptable for any tradesperson, any profession not to be able to afford access to Standards.
I know of many many building designers who because of limited income do not purchase up to date Standards and therefore practice without the knowledge of up to date Standards. This is a sad state of affairs –I am sure this is also the case in many other professions.
Therefore the result of this non access is that the Standards remain locked up in a Standards vault only to be accessed by the committed & financially accessible in our society. They are not performing as “Standards “ but as “Exclusives”
This is not acceptable. I find there is a culture in building that do not refer to standards ever!
This is tragic.
I propose the following to this Review of Standards :-

That all standards be floated on a common website that is kept up to date so "all" can easily access via the net for free & if you want a print out you pay.

Local Councils are now doing this with LEPs etc and there isn’t a problem.

Yours sincerely 

Mike Purtell