Alec Knewstubb defends access to New Zealand standards.
Pat Hyland's opinion piece (ODT, 18.5.15) demands a response because, behind his hyperbole, there is an important question.
He bemoans the fact that while he is obliged by law to comply with standards, he cannot access those standards without buying them.
He suggests they should be available for him to borrow, without fee, from his local public library.
Since he is an ''electrical engineer'', and his examples mostly relate to electrical standards cited by the electrical regulations, let's have a look at his claim of needing to spend ''north of $7000'' to ''check whether your toaster has it in for you''.
Yes, the Electricity (Safety) Regulations (ESRs) cite some 78 Standards and Codes of Practice in Schedule 2.
These are mostly installation standards, and are needed only by those doing electrical work of various kinds.
Most such work is prescribed electrical work, so may only be carried out by authorised persons.
The necessary authorisation comes in the form of holding a current practising licence issued by the Electrical Workers Registration Board (EWRB).
As an electrical engineer, Mr Hyland can easily become a licensed electrical engineer, which licence will cost $175 plus renewal $60 every two years.
Armed with that licence, he can obtain almost every one of those 78 standards simply by logging on to the EWRB's website.
Should he so desire, he will be entitled to print out up to 10% of that huge collection of documents.
I have checked the public register of licensed electrical workers, and it would appear Mr Hyland holds no practising licence.
That being so, he is not authorised to carry out any prescribed electrical work (except under the ''homeowner'' exemption in the Electricity Act), and accordingly can have no need for installation standards on that account.
And he certainly does not need them to check his toaster because the relevant information is in Electrical Code of Practice 50 ''Repair of domestic electrical equipment''; which is published by Energy Safety, and is available - free - from its website, as is ECP 51 for homeowners doing work on their own homes.
Now, if he does not need the electrical installation standards to carry out electrical work, and he does not need them to check his toaster, why could he need them?
The obvious answer is for design work for an electrical installation in his professional capacity as an electrical engineer.
Design work is not ''prescribed electrical work'', so no practising licence is required.
However, the ESRs now require designers to accept responsibility for the safety and compliance of their designs, something which was long overdue.
So designers now need to access these standards in order to ensure that when their design is followed, it will be both safe and compliant.
The other specific standard referred to by Mr Hyland is NZS 3500.
The NZS 3500 series of standards relates to plumbing.
As Mr Hyland says, there are mandated standards in a wide range of specialist fields.
And they all need to be kept up to date.
The average life of each edition of a standard is five to 10 years, with more frequent amendments.
Standards cost money to prepare, update and publish.
The market for many is small, so the cost per copy is often high.
Hence the large sums Mr Hyland complains of.
However, most practitioners do not need a complete set, even of just electrical, and nobody needs all of them for all fields of endeavour.
So what was the important question?
It is whether the public at large - ratepayers - should subsidise access to the specialist information needed by those providing professional services.
Should our public library spend large amounts of scarce ratepayer dollars maintaining a comprehensive collection of these specialist documents?
Documents that require frequent updating and replacing and which are likely to be used by very few people?
Or can our rates be better spent in other ways?
I think when someone offers professional services, and charges professional fees for those services, it isn't unreasonable for them
not to be trotting off to the public library to find out how things should be done.
Installation standards are a basic tool for both installers and designers, and I do not expect ratepayers to supply me with the tools of my trade.
• Alec Knewstubb, from Dunedin, is an independent licensed electrical inspector, and member of several electrical standards committees.
