Hi, just a quick video. I wouldn't normally do a petition um like this and I thought I'd put on my main channel to get the biggest audience possible. So sorry if this isn't relevant. uh to you.

it's really an Australian uh thing and I'll link to the petition down below. But what it is is a Uh petition, Uh, to get free or affordable access to Australian standards. Now I think this is a real big deal and it has been a big deal in the past. And um, it's currently up to 17 000 signatures.

It's only got two days left. So please, if you think this is a good idea that we should get free or affordable access to Australian standards, then I encourage you to click the link down below and um, sign the petition as I have done and many others as well. So what this is? Um, so I actually I don't know who did it, so thanks to the person who did it anyway, let's have a quick read, shall we? Currently, the Australian standards are restricted to professionals, tradesmen and organizations through a private entity, and we'll get in that in a minute. These standards are becoming increasingly expensive and the restrictions on accessibility are increasing.

These standards are essential to ensure the safety and operability of our infrastructure and our services to the public. For a single task or service, a number of these standards may be required. This is very true if you're working well. They mentioned these standards are also constantly being revised, so new versions are required.

Some standards are mandated by legislation. Many of the people that require these standards are in small organizations or even sole traders that cannot support these overheads. This is this, in essence, will force small organizations and sole traders out of business or necessitate services being performed without having access to these standards. The existing model is unsustainable and will potentially lead to incidents, operability, and disruption to operational infrastructure.

An example, here's an example for they put it for easing here: A small electrical engineering company with 10 people that performs electrical design may need access to hundreds of standards on a single project. And having worked on stuff like this Yes, um, this is a big deal. You do often require many different standards as you go down the rabbit hole of the design process. And it's even worse if you're working on, uh, like you know, like infrastructure, like you're a civil engineer or a mechanical engineer like working on.

You know big things where there's many different standards, uh, covering it. Um, this can be a big deal. These costs. The cost of these is greater than the profit margin on this project and I can please leave it in the comments down below.

if you've had this happen to you. If you've you know, if you're a one-man band or a small business and you've um, had to pay up pony up for all of these standards, Can you pass it through to your client or whatever? Probably not, right? Anyway, Um, yes. so this is a this is a official government uh, petition Parliament of Australia to take this seriously. I believe it's It's one of the leading Uh petitions at the moment.

If we search for signatories down here, stop the Digital Identity legislation, we'll have to check that out. Um, yeah, it's it's second. So please, let's get this one right up there. I think it's important because um, myself for example, like uh, what was this a year ago? Feb? no, yeah, Feb fifth.

Like, uh, just over a year ago I had some air con, um, and and additional uh, aircon installed at my house and um, this is the wiring job I'll link to this video as well. They goofed it up. They not only failed once I asked them to come back and fix it, but they failed again a second time. And yeah, and I actually needed access to the standards to actually Uh to verify whether or not the wiring in my house was actually legal or not.

and a viewer who has access to the standards had to actually send me the relevant Um section for it. And this is actually the Um to just give you an example. Um is is this As3000. It's the Uh standard that all mains wiring and house wiring and industrial wiring and all you know the all the when your electrician comes to install something, they have to follow Australian Standard 3000.

It's the wiring rules, but there are thousands, tens of thousands of different standards. I don't know does anyone know how many there's There's tons in all aspects of, um, you know, not just engineering, but all sorts of other uh things as well. And these things are quite expensive. So if you go through and actually buy this thing, um, it is like if you want to buy it, it's 224 dollars.

It's hard to find like a like a pirated uh Pdf version. you might be able to get one or something. but you know these like these standards if you need one. Um, you've got to pony up the money and that's just one of them if you're on a project that needs 10 different standards.

I've worked on projects that, yeah, require many different standards. As I said as you go down the rabbit hole and it's just it. It's just nuts. So now let's actually read.

um, there's a Wikipedia page up for Standards Australia. Who is Standards Australia that actually run this? I've been going for a hundred years. Okay, um, I didn't know the history here. But here you go.

Standards Australia is a standards organization. Uh, it's established through a recognized memorandum of understanding with the Australian Government as the primary non-government standards development body in Australia, so they're responsible for developing the standards. Okay, and of course, they have to get paid for developing the standards and everything else, right? So it is a company limited by guarantee. As of 1998, it is 73 members representing groups, invested in all sorts of services, etc, etc.

right? And they're associated with Iso and which is the International Standards Organization and all that sort of stuff, right? So listing of the Stan Sale of Standards. Here's the interesting bit. In 2003, Standards Australia sold its standards publication business and entered into a renewable contract. Given the company Sai Global I have multi based in Chicago, Risk Management Services, Quality Assurance, wank wank wank.

Okay, so some big Um company they sold the rights to it uh, exclusive licensing rights to for the sale of the standard. So when you buy this, this is where the money is going to presumably and Sar was floated on the Australian Stock Exchange. Great. Okay.

In initially, Standards Australia retained a 40 interest, but they progressively sold this down to zero to focus exclusively on its core business of developing and maintaining its suite. There you go, there are 7 000 Australian standards. Okay. The contract was further renewed through 2018.

Sa was acquired by Oh Bear in Private Equity Asia. Okay, so now some Asian company owns it? Great. Okay, wonderful. That's where the money's going when you're forced to buy these standards.

Standards for the construction of buildings were reported to cost an average of 120 dollars. That sounds cheap compared to the wiring rules one, and the national construction Code directly or indirectly reference several hundred such standards. Obviously, you have to pay if you get like a physical copy of it, right? You know the wiring standards I think is, you know, I don't know how many pages, but it's very thick, right? So I'm not saying get that you know the paper copy for free. But geez.

anyway. So after negotiations broke down in 2016 with national and state libraries, the standards ceased to be accessible from nine libraries that have been offering public access to the standards at an annual cost of fourteen thousand dollars per library. So they didn't even even though the libraries were paying for it. And if you wanted to.

If I wanted to, I could have gone into the you know, the State Library here in New South Wales and in Sydney here, and presumably got a copy of the As3000 and looked up the thing myself. you can't even do that anymore As a result, in 2018, several groups, including the Building Products Innovation Council, Master Builders Association they're pretty big, an Australian Senate Economics Reference Committee, and The Choice Consumer Advocacy organization called for the publication rights to be bought under government control and for the standards to become freely accessible. Several groups advocated that a national standard should be provided free of charge to the relevant members of the industry. The publishing agreement currently held by Sai Global is due to expire in 2018, and the imminent release um of Ies 3000.

this sparked a renew campaign. That's what we looks like. Somebody's just updated this. Um, and that's what they're talking about here.

Like in like example, like here's some you know electrical as3000 plug and socket outlets. So if you want to know about your plug and socket outlets, there's another couple hundred bucks. Thank you very much. Um, you know, like this is just like lightning protection.

All sorts of things, right? It's it. It's just nuts. Um, and it looks like it's phone owned by a foreign entity who are This is an absolute cash cow for them. They're just milking that cow for all that cash.

So yeah, I think this is an excellent thing to get behind free or affordable access to Australian standards. Absolutely. And if you agree, please link down below. and what's it like in your country about these sorts of standards? Do you have a similar thing where you've got to pay for these? or is it free in your country? Please let us know in the comments.

Um, is this like an Australian? Are we just getting bent over, um, and thoroughly rogered here for paying for these standards? Please let us know because yeah, this is I. I think this would be really good and you know I could access these standards for like in videos and and stuff like that as well. So I think this is a really worthy petition and hopefully, um, yeah, you're not too upset that I put this on the main channel, but I think it's important enough Anyway, thoughts and comments down below: please catch you next time.