Why does Victoria have different pool barrier standards?

Every state in Australia has taken a different approach to this problem of compliance with different pool and spa safety standards.

In some states, they’ve taken the approach of saying that from time to time, they will change the rules, and everybody will have to comply with the new rules. Simple, and consistent, but it creates a lot of problems for some people.  What do you do if your barrier was compliant, and then the government changes the rules, and then you no longer comply?  Or worse, what if you find you can’t comply?  There are cases of people in Queensland who had this happen to them, and they had to fill in their pools… not an option that anyone wants.

Here in Victoria, the government has decided that you should have to comply with the rules that were in place at the time that your barrier was first built.  (Technically, it’s a little bit more complicated, but that’s close enough.) The advantage to this is that you don’t get the rules changed on you. The deal is the deal, so to speak. The disadvantage is that some people get stuck with some of the earlier standards which have real problems associated with them.

A good example of this is the people who have to comply with the 1993 or 1986 standards, and who are using the boundary fence as part of the pool barrier.  When the neighbour puts something climbable on the other side of that boundary fence, your barrier becomes non-compliant through no fault of your own.  Obviously this can be a real problem. The later standards don’t have this problem – when the later standards (the 2007 and 2012 standards) were introduced, they recognised these issues by changing things so you didn’t have to rely on what your neighbour did (or didn’t do!)

So we’ve ended up with five different barrier standards where in other states they might have only one.  This makes our lives more complicated as pool inspectors, but for most customers, it makes life a little easier.

If you’re one of those customers who’s been stuck with a problem because of your barrier standard, there are a couple of things we can do.

Have a look at this article about “multis”.  It’s a little complex, and to some extent, it depends on your local council and their attitude to the issues.  You might also find that this article about the BAB (Building Appeals Board) is helpful.

In any case, talk to us about the alternatives.  We should be able to help you out one way or another.