Standard review - children's nightwear

Overview

The ACCC invites you to have your say on the issues and policy options in the consultation paper on the review of the mandatory standard for children's nightwear. The issues in this paper have been briefly summarised below, please refer to the document for further details.

The ACCC prefers submissions to be provided via the ACCC consultation hub. Alternatively, interested parties can email submissions to productsafety.regulation@accc.gov.au

Submissions can also be made via post to:

Director
Standards & Policy
Consumer Product Safety Branch
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission
GPO Box 3131
CANBERRA ACT 2601

Submissions will be published on the ACCC website at the end of the consultation period.

Please note any information that you believe to be of a confidential nature should be clearly marked or identified as confidential. The ACCC will not disclose the confidential information to third parties, other than advisors or consultants engaged directly by the ACCC, without first providing you with notice of its intention to do so, such as where it is compelled to do so by law.

Why your views matter

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is reviewing the mandatory standards for children's nightwear to:

• Address consumer confusion over warning labels and improve their effectiveness
• Simplify compliance and reduce costs for suppliers
• Restore regulatory alignment with New Zealand.

The purpose of this review is to assess whether the mandatory safety standard remains effective and whether there are more efficient ways of achieving the same level of safety. This review of the standard considers the adoption of international standards. The ACCC has assessed the European, British, US and ISO standards against its published criteria for acceptance.

Background

The supply of flammable children's nightwear has been regulated since 1977. The current mandatory standard is based on the voluntary standard AS/NZS 1249:2003 Children's nightwear and limited daywear having reduced fire hazard. That voluntary standard was updated in 2014.

Policy options

The ACCC is considering four policy options for dealing with the current mandatory safety standard:

The ACCC’s preliminary position is to update the safety standard to adopt improvements in the 2014 version of the voluntary Australian standard (Option 2). This would improve safety, simplify the requirements and reduce costs for suppliers.

Your submissions to this consultation will help us refine the estimated costs, benefits and safety outcomes for each option, and to recommend the most appropriate option to the Minister.