The Standards Australia Standards development process is clear and rigorously defined and based on three internationally recognised principles:

• Openness and transparency of process
• Consensus
• Balance of representation

Openness and transparency of process 

Transparency is critical in the preparation of Standards. Transparency means that every act must follow a well-established procedure; that the procedure is equitable to all parties; and that each step in the standardisation process is open and available for scrutiny.

Consensus 

Consensus in standardisation is the process through which a Technical Committee, consisting of many different and sometimes opposed interests, arrives at a general agreement on the content and requirements of a Standard. This produces a Standard which best matches the needs and values of our society as a whole, and due to representation of a range of parties, broad community acceptance is assured.

Balance 

The membership of a Standards Australia Committee is formally balanced as part of the constitution of the Committee to represent the broadest possible spectrum of stakeholder interests. 

Development Phases

The Standards development process involves a number of distinct stages.

Proposal for a new or revised Standard

A formal proposal comes from the Australian community, often from industry associations or government departments. Standards Australia does not initiate new Standard projects - it responds to requests from external stakeholders.  A rigorous justification of the need for the project and a statement of its value to the Australian community in the form of a Net Benefit Case is required before Standards Australia approves the commencement of a new project.

Project approval

All proposed projects, including their Net Benefit Cases, are carefully assessed by Standards Australia. If necessary, further clarification will be sought from the proponent. For projects proposed under the Standards Australia Resourced or the Committee Driven Pathways, Standards Australia conducts a formal submission, assessment and approval process twice per year. For projects proposed under the Externally Funded Pathway, assessment and approvals can be conducted at any time.

Where a proposal for a new Standard is put forward by an external source and the subject area is covered by an existing Technical Committee, that Committee is consulted and their views on the proposal are sought. Where no suitable Technical Committee exists, the project proponent needs to indicate a suggested constitution for the new Committee and also show that the proposal has the support of key stakeholders that are likely to be affected by the new Standard.

The Standards Development Committee (SDC) approves a portfolio of projects that can be supported by Standards Australia within available resources and within defined timeframes.
 
NOTE: For more details on the assessment process and criteria, refer to the Standards Australia Guide to the Project Prioritisation Process and Criteria. 

Formation of a Technical Committee

Standards published around the world are prepared by Technical Committees. Each committee is led by an appointed Chair. The Chair is supported by a Committee Secretary, responsible for co-ordinating committee work and ensuring the draft Standard, which emerges from the committee work, follows the basic principles of standardisation. These principles are published in a series of Standardisation Guides. 

Drafting

The Committee meets to set a drafting schedule, discuss progress, co-ordinate activities and seek to establish consensus in the technical content of the emerging draft. Most of the necessary drafting work is done offline in Sub-Committees and expert Working Groups, using advanced web-based authoring, administration and balloting systems.
Committees are obliged to ensure that proposed Standards will not act as a barrier to trade, competition or innovative development, before any drafting work is undertaken. It is also a Standards Australia policy to adopt International Standards to the maximum possible extent. In the absence of an appropriate existing International Standard, and after verification that the proposed Standard will not be anti-competitive, the Committee proceeds to prepare a draft for a new Australian Standard. 

Draft for public comment

This stage ensures that the broader community has an opportunity to review the content and direction of the Standard prior to its completion, and requires a draft document to be published and made available to the public for comment for nine weeks.  For simple adoptions of International Standards this period is six weeks and is conducted in parallel with the Committee Ballot process. 

Consideration of comment  

All comments from the public are considered in detail by the Committee and, if necessary, further drafting is undertaken to accommodate responses to the comments. 

Draft for postal ballot 

The Committee then votes on the final draft. For the Standard to be published, the ballot must demonstrate the consensus of the Committee that the content of the document is ready to be published. 

The published Standard  

Final approval of the development process is given by, or on behalf of, the Standards Development Committee (SDC) and the Standard is ready for publication. 

Revision of existing Standards

All Standards need to be reviewed from time to time, as technology, knowledge and community needs change. For this reason a review process exists to keep the Australian Standards catalogue up to date. Major Standards and those dealing with topics continually undergoing rapid change are normally revised and republished within a period of seven years and most others are revised within ten years of their publication date.

The legal status of Australian Standards®

Standards Australia is an independent organisation and our Standards are not legal documents. However, because of widespread acceptance of the Standards development principles and process and the willingness of all parties to adopt them, many of the documents are called up in Federal or State legislation, with the result that they then become mandatory. Currently about 2400 of our Standards are mandatory, however most are used voluntarily by people who value their expertise and commonsense. They are practical and don't set impossible goals. They are based on sound industrial and scientific experience.