Tuesday 18 February 2020
The Automated External Defibrillator (Public Access) Bill 2020 (the AED Bill) was re-introduced in the Legislative Council in March 2020 by Hon Frank Pangallo MLC. T
The Bill would require the installation of one AED in relevant buildings less than 1200sqm and one AED for each 1200sqm in larger buildings.
The scope of the Bill is quite wide. It captures a broad range of public and commercial premises. Members should review the definition of a public building or facility in clause 3 and all of clauses 4 and 5 of the Bill to consider whether they are likely to be affected. Among the sectors directly affected are State and local government, hospitals, universities, residential aged care, retirement communities, casinos, theaters and correctional institutions plus car parks that are buildings as part of any premises. Given that there is an ability to make regulations to include or exclude places from the ambit of the Bill, the scope of clauses 4 and 5 cannot be considered to be clear. If there are doubts as to whether your premises are affected or not, assume that they are and provide your inputs to us accordingly.
By way of clarification, the buildings specified by Building Code Class in clause 4(j) of the Bill are:
- A building containing 2 or more sole-occupancy units each being a separate dwelling (Building Code Class 2)
- An office building used for professional or commercial purposes (Building Code Class 5)
- A shop or other building for the sale of goods by retail or the supply of services direct to the public. Example: café, restaurant, kiosk, hairdressers, showroom or service station (Building Code Class 6)
- A building which is a car park (Building Code Class 7a)
- A building which is for storage or display of goods or produce for sale by wholesale (Building Code Class 7b)
- A laboratory, or a building in which a handicraft or process for the production, assembling, altering, repairing, packing, finishing, or cleaning of goods or produce is carried on for trade, sale or gain (Building Code Class 8)
SISA has met with Hon Frank Pangallo MLC. We raised concerns about the lack of clarity in the scope of the Bill, issues around the distribution of AEDs within buildings and whether certain institutions such as public and private hospitals, which are already well equipped with defibrillation equipment should be included in the Bill's scope.
At this point we are not aware as to what the Government's likely position on the Bill will be. SISA has asked its members to provide estimates of the impact and unintended consequences of the Bill.