Posts
Call for ban on child car seat head strap
4 minute read
The forces involved when cars crash are beyond most peoples’ imagination. I remember once seeing a video that showed the impact of a 60kph car crash is comparable to a person falling from a four-storey building.
We…
Button batteries – the most important message
It's international Button Battery Awareness Day on 12 June. The day was set up in the USA by Reese's Purpose, after 17 month-old Reese Hamsmith died from a button battery lodged in her oesophagus. The day is also marked this year by similarly…
Wire in your Barbecued Sausage?
It’s summer in Australia and barbecues everywhere are being fired up. There’s always a joke about what’s inside a meat sausage – sometimes euphemistically called a ‘mystery bag’. But even though we’re prepared to take our…
Button battery regulation, Australia
5 minute read
There’s three things that mark out button batteries as a critical product safety hazard – the severity of the injuries, the ongoing rate of those injuries and the breadth of exposure to the product.
Swallowing a…
Things to watch out for while the kids are stuck at home
3 minute read
Keeping the family
safe in isolation
When kids are
stuck indoors, they can get creative in how they keep themselves entertained. This
article highlights three known hazards around the home that parents and carers
need…
Do we really need to regulate garment care labelling?
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has asked whether to keep, modify or revoke the mandatory standard for care labelling of apparel and household textiles. I support revocation, as I believe having a regulation for garment…
Suppliers – choose packaging with product safety in mind
We’ve all seen courier vans buzzing around our streets delivering goods that have been purchased online. Are the couriers careful with the boxes? Are the goods in sound condition when they arrive?
I recently read an article in Melbourne’s…
Product safety podcast – Interview with Tim Wain
In this product safety podcast Gail Greatorex talks with Tim Wain, who’s had a long association with product safety in the infant and children’s product field. Tim now runs Australia’s Pregnancy Babies and Children’s Expo.
In…
Product safety podcast – Button battery interview
Button battery interview
Recorded in Brisbane, Queensland on 3 November 2015 following release of the Coroner’s findings on the death of Summer Steer from swallowing a button battery.
I have asked 'Are button batteries the most challenging…
Button batteries everywhere
Battery packaging
In an indication of how seldom I bake, and how few kilometres I do on my pushbike, I have only recently had to change the batteries for the first time on both the digital kitchen scale I got for Christmas in 2011 and my…