Unlocking Standards for the built environment
After more than two decades leading professional associations in fields ranging from architecture and procurement to HR and medicine, Angelina Pillai has seen firsthand what professionals need to thrive, serve the public interest, and maintain high standards. Across every discipline, access to the ‘tools’ of compliance, safety and quality isn’t optional. It’s essential!
I just don’t get it. After all these years, and relentless advocacy efforts, it still doesn’t make sense.
Australia’s built environment professionals – architects, engineers, designers and more – are responsible for shaping the spaces where we live, work, and connect. Every day, they translate complex codes, policies, and technical standards into the buildings and infrastructure that form the fabric of our cities and communities.
And yet, in one of the strangest contradictions in our system, these professionals are required by law to comply with technical standards that they must pay to access. And by pay, I mean heavily.
It’s not just unfair. It’s inefficient, outdated, and completely out of step with global best practice. Worse still, it undermines the very outcomes we claim to prioritise — safety, sustainability and innovation.
Consumers of our services, everyday Australians, should feel confident that their homes, workplaces and public spaces are safe – that the professionals who design and build them have access to the guidance they need. When compliance with standards is a legal requirement, access should be a right, not a privilege.
Paying to Play by the Rules
For those unfamiliar with the process, most of Australia’s technical standards are developed collaboratively, often voluntarily, by government regulators, industry bodies, and expert professionals. These same professionals then have to pay to access the final product they helped create.
In the built environment sector, these standards are referenced throughout the National Construction Code, planning and building regulations, and certification frameworks. They are not optional.
Yet, for many small practices and sole operators who make up the majority of the profession, the cost of accessing these standards runs into the thousands every year.
This is like requiring drivers to obey road rules but charging them to access the rule book.
See what I mean? Senseless!
Is it time to pause technical expert contributions to these standards until we address the issue of equitable access?
The Cost of Inaccessibility
Limited access doesn’t just make things harder – it makes them riskier. It discourages best practice, increases the likelihood of non-compliance, and creates inequity across the profession. And at a time when the industry is under pressure to address climate change, embrace digital technologies, and boost productivity, not to mention help solve a housing crisis, locking up standards behind a paywall actively holds us back.
Let’s be clear: equitable access to standards is not a luxury. It’s a baseline requirement for a safe, efficient, and future-focused industry.
Australia Is Falling Behind
Other countries have already moved with the times:
- New Zealand offers free online access to building standards
- The UK integrates key standards into its regulatory system at no cost
- Canada and many EU nations subsidise or openly publish essential standards
Australia? Still stuck in an outdated model built on old licensing arrangements and commercial distribution deals. It no longer serves the public, and it certainly doesn’t serve the professionals we rely on to keep our buildings safe and functional.
A Public Good Deserves Public Access
The built environment isn’t just made up of private projects; it’s the public realm. Standards are fundamental to public safety, professional integrity, and national productivity. Treating them like a commercial product completely misses their true value.
It’s time we treat standards as what they are: critical national infrastructure.
What Needs to Happen
The ACA is appealing to others within the built environment to call on the Australian Government and Standards Australia to:
- Publicly fund access to all Australian Standards referenced in regulation
- Reform licensing and distribution models to ensure fair, modern access
- Recognise standards as essential national infrastructure
This isn’t just about cost. It’s about enabling the people who build our world to do their jobs properly – with confidence, clarity, and in the public interest.
If we truly want a safer, smarter and more sustainable built environment, we need to start by unlocking the tools that make that possible.
We need safety to make sense.