I came upon this thread in another forum, in which a British builder is asking about taking 110V power tools to Australia:
http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=246102 And one of the replies:
If your work is in the building trade and you have a lot of 110v power tools I would recommend selling them in the UK. I had a lot and thought as they're 110 they'd be safer so I brought them [spent ages cleaning them as well].
Here in QLD your power tools and by tools I mean everything extension leads, kettles, radios and even your sandwich toaster [the tradies here have it all ] need testing and tagging for compliance every three months by a "competent person", cost's about $5-$10 per item. Unfortunately by their design your transformer will not pass the compliance test rendering all your tools useless for working "on site" I now have a lot of 110v tools that are only any good for using at home.
NSW insist on testing on a monthly basis and there is talk QLD will adopt simlar tactics quite soon [probably about 20 yrs time]
Penalties for having untagged equipment are quite harsh for repeat offenders.
Seems to me that the Austrlian authorities are getting carried away with workplace safety.
Would any of our Aussie members care to comment?
