Recall provisions apply only to consumer goods, Treasury says, with no equivalent framework to require corrective action for unsafe installation. Submissions on its nine options close 18 October

The short answer, by who you are

• You install blinds, shutters or awnings. Installation is a product related service under the Australian Consumer Law. The paper’s Option 9 would build a framework under which the Minister could require a service provider to undertake corrective action, which could include rectifying unsafe work, much as a compulsory recall does for goods. You already carry the two-day reporting duty.
• You make, import or sell coverings. Option 3 would settle what counts as a recall, so that repair or replacement-part programs could need notifying. Option 6 would widen the injuries you must report and could add near misses. Option 8 would raise the penalties for not reporting or notifying.
• You have coverings fitted at home. Nothing changes yet. This is a consultation; Treasury says the impacts of any reform will be assessed in a later Decision Regulation Impact Statement.

Submissions are lodged on Treasury’s consultation page, which says the consultation opened on 21 September 2026. The paper warns: All submissions will be published in full on the Treasury website unless you request that all or part of your submission remain confidential.

Why installation is in this

The Australian Consumer Law defines a product related service as a service for or relating to the installation of consumer goods of a particular kind, as well as their maintenance, repair, cleaning, assembly and delivery. The federal cord rule, the Competition and Consumer (Corded Internal Window Coverings) Safety Standard 2014, says of itself: This safety standard sets out mandatory installation requirements for corded internal window coverings. It is the rule that a loose cord must not be able to form a loop of 220 mm or more below 1,600 mm (our explainer). So when a corded blind is fitted unsafely, on our reading, the fault sits in the service rather than in the goods.

That is where the paper finds a gap. In the Consultation Regulation Impact Statement, Treasury says product-related services already face safety standards, bans and mandatory reporting. However, the recall provisions only apply to consumer goods. There is no equivalent framework for requiring corrective action where a safety risk arises from a product-related service, such as unsafe installation.

Consumer goods

The blind, shutter or awning

• Safety standards and bans applyACL Part 3-3
• Report a death or serious injury or illness within 2 dayss 131
• Notify a voluntary recall within 2 days, including goods that have since become fixturess 128
• The Minister can order a compulsory recallPart 3-3, Division 3

Product-related services

Installing, repairing, delivering it

• Safety standards and bans apply; the 2014 cord standard is an installation standardF2014L00363, clause 3
• Report a death or serious injury or illness within 2 dayss 132
• No voluntary corrective action notice. Option 9 would add oneConsultation RIS, Option 9(e)
• No power to order corrective action. Option 9 would add oneConsultation RIS, Option 9(e)

Option 9(e) would build that framework. Suppliers could be required to notify the ACCC when they voluntarily take corrective action to address a safety risk arising from a service they have provided, much as they notify a voluntary recall, and The Minister could also be empowered to require a service provider to undertake corrective action where necessary to address a safety risk, in a manner similar to a compulsory recall. The paper adds: Corrective action could include rectifying unsafe work. It puts the cost plainly, as Medium compliance and remediation costs for service providers where action is required, some of which may be passed on to consumers.

Option 5, a set of targeted intervention powers for regulators, also reaches the trade. One power would require a supplier to send targeted safety messages to consumers, retailers, distributors, installers, repairers or other affected persons, whether or not a voluntary recall is under way.

Recalls and reports: what the other options would change

What counts as a recall. A supplier must notify within two days of taking voluntary action to recall a consumer good, but, the paper says, the ACL does not define what constitutes a recall. Option 3 offers two forms of words. The first comes from the Australian Consumer Law Review of 2017:

“corrective action taken post-production to address consumer health or safety issues associated with a product”

A non-exhaustive list could follow: permanently removing a product or a component, repairing it or replacing a component, directing consumers to dispose of it, and updating its software or firmware, each when taken to address a safety risk. Treasury asks whether it is clear enough that normal warranty repairs are not meant to be caught. On our reading, a program that posts replacement parts to fix a safety risk in a fitted product would be the kind of action the list describes.

Fixtures. Option 9(a) would make clear that consumer goods stay covered after they become fixtures. Treasury’s example is a kitchen appliance: For example, a built-in dishwasher supplied as a consumer good may become a fixture after installation. The voluntary recall section already says it covers goods including consumer goods that have become fixtures since being supplied; the paper says the interaction of the definitions may still create complexity or confusion. A fitted shutter is fixed to the building, so on our reading this option touches this trade too.

Reporting. Today a report is due only for a death or a serious injury or illness. Option 6 sets out a spectrum for widening that, from reporting any injury or illness to simplifying what counts as serious, and asks about near misses: Businesses are currently not required to report near misses, even if a product failure, defect or hazard could have resulted in death, serious injury or illness under slightly different circumstances. It also asks whether the two-day deadline should stay, shrink or grow to three or four days if reporting widens.

One thing in that table does not match the text beside it. Treasury says the proposed amounts apply an approximate 20-fold increase to penalty settings. On its own figures, $1 million is about 61 times $16,500, and $200,000 is about 61 times $3,300 (our arithmetic). The 20-fold description fits the separate compliance-method penalty, $250,000 to $5 million.

The paper’s one example that touches this trade’s products is button batteries, the cells in remotes such as the one in the Nordic awning recall. Western Australian officers tested 49 low-cost button battery products bought from online marketplaces in 2025, and 46 products (94 per cent) failed to comply with one or more mandatory safety standards. Only five were recalled by their suppliers. What those standards ask of a remote is in our explainer.

Is anything decided?

1. March 2017Australian Consumer Law Review Final Report proposes the wording that a recall action includes corrective action taken post-production
2. 21 September 2026Treasury opens the consultation on nine options
3. 18 October 2026Submissions close
4. No date givenA Decision Regulation Impact Statement assesses the impacts of any proposed reforms. A separate consultation is to consider online marketplaces

No. Treasury says The Government has not identified a preferred option at this stage. The paper calls itself the first stage of a reform program, backed by $6.6 million over three years from 2026-27, and its options can be taken alone or combined. Option 1 is to keep the current framework.

Our read

This section is opinion, built on the documents above.

Option 9(e) is the one this trade should answer, because the federal cord rule is written for the person holding the drill. If an installation leaves a cord that can loop low, the fix is a return visit and a cleat at the right height, and today the consumer law has a recall mechanism for the blind but none for the job. Closing that gap makes sense to us. The design question is the one the paper leaves open and installers are best placed to answer: when an installer followed the supplier’s instructions and used the supplied parts, who should carry the corrective action?

Two smaller points are worth putting in a submission. The penalty text and table disagree, by a factor of three, and a business deserves to know which is meant. And a firmware update appearing in the recall list matters to anyone selling motorised coverings whose motors or hubs take software updates, so suppliers should say now what a routine update looks like, before a definition decides it for them.

Sources

1. The Treasury, Strengthening post-market regulation of unsafe products in the Australian Consumer Law: Consultation Regulation Impact Statement, September 2026 (PDF, also published as DOCX; read 10 October 2026): the nine options, the gap for product-related services, the recall wording, the fixtures example, near misses, the penalty tables, the button battery box, the closing date, publication of submissions and the funding.
2. The Treasury, Strengthening post-market regulation of unsafe products, consultation page (read in a browser 10 October 2026): opened 21 September 2026, closes 18 October 2026, nine options, how to submit.
3. Competition and Consumer Act 2010, compilation No. 167, compilation date 16 September 2026, volume 4, Schedule 2 (the Australian Consumer Law), Federal Register of Legislation (read 10 October 2026): the definition of product related service in section 2, and sections 128, 131 and 132.
4. Competition and Consumer (Corded Internal Window Coverings) Safety Standard 2014, F2014L00363, Federal Register of Legislation (read 10 October 2026): its purpose, application and installation requirements.

How we did this. We read Treasury’s consultation paper in full in its Word version, checked the passages we rely on against the PDF (most of whose pages are images, so some were read by eye), and read the consultation page in a browser. A text search of the paper finds no mention of blinds, curtains, shutters, awnings or windows. We read the Australian Consumer Law’s definition of a product related service and its recall notification and reporting sections in the current compilation, and the 2014 cord standard as made, which the register lists as its latest version. The multiples in the penalty paragraph are our division of Treasury’s own figures. That a faulty cord installation is a service fault, and that a parts program or a fitted shutter falls within Options 3 and 9(a), are our readings, not Treasury’s. We have not read the 2017 Review report itself, only Treasury’s quotation of it. The ACCC’s websites refused our requests when last tested on 8 October 2026, so its guidance was not read. This is an explainer, not legal advice. We have no commercial relationship with any supplier or installer of window coverings and have not contacted Treasury.

Installing, importing or selling coverings, and read an option differently? Tell us and we will check it at the source and log the outcome here.