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Long time no newsletter! Get moving on button batteries Australia!. And a sad farewell to two product safety champions. 
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Product orders for June 2022
 

If your business sells consumer goods, you will be placing orders now for June next year. If these products or their accessories include button batteries, they will need to comply with the Australian mandatory safety standards which take full effect on 22 June 2022. Any product that doesn’t meet the standards will be illegal after that date.

If you have not already geared up your business to get all goods with button batteries in them compliant, get your skates on ...

 

Associations role in button battery compliance
by Gail Greatorex

Industry associations have a key role to play in helping members implement the standards. I know that the Australian Toy Association, Australasian Promotional Products Association, Infant and Nursery Product Alliance, Consumer Electronics Association and National Retail Association have already swung into action. These groups have been proactively involved in button battery safety to date.

All other associations whose members sell batteries and button battery-powered goods must also step up to ensure awareness and promote compliance.

Vale product safety colleagues
By Gail Greatorex

This year product safety in Australia has lost two of its champions. Back in May, Wen Huang of Baby Bunting passed away after a long illness. And then we learned that Kellie Powell of Amazon passed unexpectedly, of natural causes. 

I wrote a blog tribute to Wen who was a tireless contributor to safety and especially with babies' products. Wen's work over several decades has made a tangible difference to safe design, production and marketing across a range of products.

Kellie Powell was a friend and colleague I knew for twenty years. She was a genuine leader in product safety, quality, and compliance more broadly. I first knew Kellie when she worked with the Super Retail Group, then at Woolworths P/L. A short stint in financial compliance ended with a return to Woolworths, before Kellie took on the inaugural role managing product safety at Amazon in Australia. 

Kellie was very keen to build product safety as a vital role in the commercial sector, with comprehensive training and formal qualifications to elevate its status. I hope this can be delivered in the not too distant future. I haven't been able to reach Kellie's family to seek consent to me writing a formal tribute, but I would like in this newsletter to acknowledge her dedication to her profession and to safety. 

The photo above is from 2018 when Kellie and I had a day in Antwerp, before the Brussels product safety conference. 



 

 
Climate action
By Gail Greatorex

It's November already and this is my first newsletter for 2021! And no podcasts this year either. This is mostly due to me devoting a lot of my discretionary time to a citizen advocacy project to help address climate change - and that can't afford to be deferred. It stems from my belief that associations can be great leaders and catalysts for change, which happens in product safety.

I plan to return to more product safety projects in 2022. 






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Product Safety Solutions · PO Box 156 · Carnegie, Vic 3163 · Australia

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