Weld Australia’s Geoff Crittenden speaks to how enforcing Australian Standards is the key to safer, more productive, and globally competitive industry.
If you build it right, you only build it once.
That simple truth sits at the heart of Australia’s productivity, safety, and sovereign capability. Yet too often we treat compliance with Australian Standards as an afterthought. A cost to be shaved, a box to be ticked, a PDF to be filed.
The consequences are real: unsafe structures, shortened asset life, avoidable re-work, and a domestic fabrication sector undercut by non-conforming imports. Compliance isn’t a bureaucratic burden. It is the bedrock of public safety and the foundation of a competitive, resilient industrial base.
The cost of non-compliance
We don’t have a shortage of rules; we have a shortage of enforcement. Across buildings and infrastructure, the National Construction Code and a raft of state technical specifications set clear performance expectations. But in practice, compliance is too often managed by paperwork rather than by welding engineers, inspectors and verifiers on the shop floor and the lay-down yard. The result? Projects that meet the letter of a contract but not the spirit, or the Standard.
Everyone in Australia’s welding and fabrication industry has seen versions of the same story: trusses delivered with non-conforming welds, imported steelwork painted over before rectification, bridges or roofs requiring premature remediation, and consumer products that should never have reached an Australian site or home. These aren’t anomalies. They are symptoms of a system that relies on self-declaration and after-the-fact litigation instead of up-front conformance and independent inspection.
That approach is a false economy. Cutting corners during fabrication doesn’t make assets cheaper. It makes them more expensive over their lifecycle. A footbridge designed for 50 to 100 years but delivered with non-conforming welds will not achieve its design life without expensive, unplanned maintenance. Those costs ultimately land with government owners and taxpayers. Meanwhile, the reputational damage lands with all of us: fabricators, engineers, and project owners alike.
A fair go requires a level playing field
Australian fabricators operate to demanding Standards, and we should be proud of that. But when imported fabricated steel can enter the market at half the local price, with no robust, independent system to verify it complies with Australian Standards, we don’t have a market. We have a race to the bottom. Recent trade disruptions have only amplified the flood of low-cost, low-assurance imports seeking new destinations. Australia is an attractive target if compliance is assumed, not proven.
Let’s be clear: this isn’t about protectionism. It’s about public safety, whole-of-life value, and fair competition. Overseas suppliers should compete for Australian work, provided that they meet the same Standards, undergo the same certification and audit processes, and accept the same inspection regime before steelwork is erected or installed. That is how you deliver a fair go for Australian industry and genuine value for money for public and private owners.
We know what works
There are pockets of excellence to learn from. Government-managed projects delivered by road and rail authorities typically mandate rigorous technical specifications (for example, compliance with AS/NZS ISO 3834, AS/NZS 5131 and AS 4100), third-party certification and welding inspection. Quality is high because the specification and the assurance are non-negotiable.
South Australia has gone a step further with its Master Specification ST-SS-S1: Fabrication of Structural Steelwork, which neatly integrates Australian Standards and quality systems, and sets additional requirements for overseas fabrication, including qualified supervisors, welder re-qualification, and inspection in Australia before assembly or erection.
If every state adopted an aligned, harmonised specification, and if the National Construction Code referenced those requirements, we would finally have a consistent compliance framework across the country.
Same rules. Same checks. For everyone.
Canada’s model points to a national solution
Other advanced economies around the world have already recognised that Standards without enforcement are just suggestions. Canada designates the Canadian Welding Bureau to certify both local and overseas companies to Canadian Standards and to underpin inspection regimes. The result is not a barrier to trade. It is a barrier to non-conformance.
Australia should do likewise. Weld Australia proposes a National Fabrication Authority (NFA). The NFA would be an independent, not-for-profit certification and inspection body tasked with verifying compliance to Australian Standards for all fabricated steel, whether it’s produced in Dubbo or Da Nang.
The NFA would certify companies to the relevant Standards, audit welding systems and personnel, and mandate inspection of imported fabricated steel before any piece is bolted up or welded in-situ.
Working alongside state regulators, it would provide authenticated conformance reports, enabling enforcement action where required. Seed funding would be modest, with the NFA becoming self-sustaining within three years. Any surplus would be reinvested for the benefit of industry.
This is not new bureaucracy. It is targeted capability: the “policeman” our system currently lacks.
Compliance drives productivity
There’s a tendency to frame Standards as friction. Good Standards and credible conformity assessment are productivity tools. They reduce re-work, compress risk contingencies, and increase first-time-right delivery. They allow owners to buy on value, not just price. They give Australian fabricators confidence to invest in people, procedures and plant because they know they won’t be undercut by non-conforming product. They strengthen our capacity to export high-value fabricated steel, because the same systems that assure domestic quality are the ones foreign buyers rely on.
Compliance isn’t the enemy of innovation either. Manufacturing is the most innovation-intensive sector in the economy. You cannot be an innovation leader with a hollowed-out industrial base. Enforcing Standards is a necessary precondition for the advanced, digitally enabled fabrication we all want to scale.
What needs to happen now
We don’t need to rewrite every law in the land. We need to join up good policy that already exists and give it teeth.
Harmonise procurement: Incorporate the key elements of South Australia’s ST-SS-S1 across the National Construction Code and all state specifications for fabricated structural steel. Make compliance verifiable, not declaratory.
Establish the National Fabrication Authority: Empower an independent body to certify companies in Australia and overseas to Australian Standards and to inspect fabricated steel prior to erection.
Specify quality systems: Mandate AS/NZS ISO 3834, AS/NZS 5131 and AS 4100 for all structural steelwork, with qualified welding supervision and periodic welder re-qualification for overseas work.
Inspect imports at the gate: Require inspection of imported fabricated steel in Australia before assembly. If it doesn’t comply, it doesn’t proceed.
Align incentives: Ensure procurement policies value compliance and whole-of-life performance. Disallow practices that treat “lowest upfront cost” as a proxy for value, especially where conformance evidence is weak.
None of this infringes Australia’s World Trade Organisation (WTO) commitments. On the contrary, the WTO’s Technical Barriers to Trade framework anticipates legitimate national requirements for technical regulations, standards and conformity assessment to protect public safety and support national interest. Our current approach (faithful to the letter of free-trade ideals while neglecting enforcement) has made our market a soft target for non-conforming imports. We can, and must, do better.
A national interest test for steel
Steel fabrication underpins everything from bridges and stadiums to defence and energy projects. In a geopolitically uncertain world, the capacity to fabricate to Standard at home is a strategic capability, not a nice-to-have. When non-conforming work slips through, we don’t just risk accidents; we erode trust, waste public money, and crowd out the very firms we will depend on when supply chains tighten.
Compliance to Australian Standards is the fairest, fastest path to rebuild capability. It protects the public, levels the playing field, and restores confidence that what we design is what we get.
Minister Ayres: your leadership can make this happen
This is a moment for practical nation-building. With leadership from the Hon Tim Ayres, Minister for Industry and Innovation and Minister for Science, and collaboration with state governments, regulators and industry bodies, we can put in place a harmonised, enforceable compliance regime that works for everyone: owners, builders, governments, fabricators and the public.
Industry is ready to do its part. But without state and federal government backing, the best specification sits idle, and the best intent goes unenforced. We need a policeman. We need a mandate. And we need it now.
If we want safe bridges, durable assets and world-class defence projects – built in Australia, by Australian companies, to Australian Standards – then state and federal governments must support the system that guarantees it. Back the model, fund the authority, and let’s give Australians the quality, value and security they deserve.
