Unlike in the past, most electrical equipment available for sale to consumers is now manufactured overseas, outside the safety approval systems or surveillance of Australian authorities. A Regulatory Compliance Mark (RCM) is a graphic symbol indicating a supplier’s claim that a product meets applicable regulatory requirements. A regulatory compliance mark (RCM) for electrical safety is available and can be referenced through the revised AS/NZS 4417.1 and 2 2012 standard (effective 1st July 2012).
Standards Australia recently published these revised standards to provide a uniform Australian/New Zealand regulatory compliance mark, for electrical and electronic equipment. It is intended that such a mark will aid purchasing decisions by consumers and aid regulators in regulatory enforcement.
CFA representative Murali Nathan is on Standards Australia Technical Committee QR-012 which revised the standard. Significant progress has now been made on the classification framework to identify products as high, medium and low risk. Products that are high risk will require to be certified and registered on a national database. They will need mandatory conformance marking prior to sale.
In Australia, technical and safety electrical regulatory functions are largely the responsibility of state and territory governments who participate on the Electrical Regulatory Authorities Council (ERAC).
From an electrical safety perspective there are at least three issues relevant to consumers. They are an approved identification mark to check for compliance to safety standards, the risk based classification of electrical products and uniformity in legislation.
Consumers across Australia need to have a single uniform method of verifying a product’s conformance to safety standards. At the moment considerable progress has been made with harmonising regulations across multiple jurisdictions.