[Received by email 20/4/06]

SUBMISSION

Re:  Availability of Standards to the Industry

Does the government and Standards Australia understand the level of resentment within the building industry that exists towards the provision of standards documents.

I pass on to the enquiry the following observations held by colleagues within the building industry:
•	The attitude of industry is that a monopoly has been allowed to be established through Standards and that that monopoly is rorted at the reasonable expense of industry members 
•	That documents are unnecessarily amended. 
•	That it should be made more widely known that Standards is a private company and not an arm of government: therefore information presented by Standards is arbitrarily imposed upon the community unless it is nominated in relevant government documents 
•	That constantly changing standards are unsettling, unnecessary and expensive with little benefit often achieved by the imposed changes 
•	Industry is impatient with the status quo 
•	That Standards exploits the industry for its own gain 
•	That limits must be placed on obvious profit-taking 
•	Profits should be shared back into the industry. 
•	The functioning of Standards should come under greater government and industry control 
•	All information mandated for release to the public by the government should be free of charge as per existing legislation 
•	That the provision of information for a fee to the community via Standards is illegal and that industry should mount a challenge to the ensure stable information flow and cost effectiveness in the dissemination of standards.

Peter Gerhard
Sunspot Design Pty. Ltd.
20/04/06