Two instruments, two jobs
The Trade Practices (Consumer Product Safety Standard, Corded Internal Window Coverings) Regulations 2010 commenced 10 July 2010 and apply to corded internal window coverings supplied after 30 December 2010. They are the supply-side rules: what a manufacturer or retailer must put in the box and print on the packaging. The Competition and Consumer (Corded Internal Window Coverings) Safety Standard 2014 was made on 20 March 2014 and commenced 1 January 2015. It is the installation-side rule: what must be true at the window once the covering is fitted. The two sit under different parent Acts, the old Trade Practices Act 1974 and the Competition and Consumer Act 2010, which is an artefact of the Australian Consumer Law's creation in 2010, not a drafting error.
The installation test, from the clause
Clause 6 of the 2014 Standard sets the operative test: a corded internal window
covering must be installed so that a loose cord cannot form a loop 220 mm or
longer at less than 1,600 mm above floor level
. Two consequences follow in the
same clause. A cleat used to secure a cord must itself be at least
1,600 mm above floor level, no exceptions. A cord guide may sit
lower than 1,600 mm only if it will remain firmly attached to the wall or other
structure when a tension force of 70 newtons is applied in any direction for
10 seconds, and only if it still stops the loop forming.
What 70 newtons means
The ACCC's installation guide translates the one technical number: A force of
70 N is approximately equal to applying a 7 kilogram weight and has been assessed
as the likely amount of force a child may exert on a blind cord guide by grabbing,
pulling or hanging on it.
That is the whole logic of the test. A cord guide that
pops off the wall under a child's weight is not a safety device; the standard makes
the wall fixing, not the plastic part, do the work.
The words the law requires on the box
The 2010 Regulations prescribe warning text verbatim. Regulation 7 requires
retail packaging to carry, in red capitals at least 5 mm high on a white
background: "WARNING: CURTAIN AND BLIND CORDS HAVE CAUSED THE DEATH OF YOUNG
CHILDREN AND MUST BE INSTALLED SO THAT THEY ARE NOT A STRANGULATION HAZARD. FOLLOW
THE INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS." Regulation 8 prescribes the swing tag that must
stay on the cord itself, beginning WARNING: Young children have died by wrapping
loose curtain and blind cords or chains around their necks
, and ending "Do not
remove this label." Those mandated words are the plainest statement of why this
law exists, and we quote them once, from the instrument, rather than paraphrase
them into a headline.
The installer's own label
Less known: clause 7 of the 2014 Standard requires whoever installs a corded internal window covering to attach a label with the installer's own name and contact details, and forbids removing the manufacturer's warning tag. If you are paying a professional installer, a nameless installation is itself a non-compliance.
Reviewed once, unchanged since 2014
The ACCC ran a public consultation in early 2019 reviewing the standard, with four options on the table: keep it, replace it, accept compliance with the US, Canadian or European rules (which have moved toward cordless-by-default designs), or revoke it. No new instrument resulted. Both the 2010 Regulations and the 2014 Standard remain in force today, unamended. Australia's rule therefore remains an installation-geometry rule, not a cordless-product rule; that difference is worth knowing when reading overseas coverage of cordless mandates.
The standard that does not exist
Retailer pages and trade coverage regularly cite "AS/NZS 4874" as Australia's blind cord standard. We read both gazetted instruments in full: no such designation appears in either, and neither instrument incorporates a Standards Australia document by that number. The operative law is the two instruments above, full stop. If a supplier quotes "AS/NZS 4874 compliance" at you, they are citing something that is not the law; the useful question is whether the installation meets clause 6 of the 2014 Standard.
Where the states fit
These federal rules bind supply (since 30 December 2010) and new installations (since 1 January 2015) everywhere in Australia, in every kind of home. What they do not do is reach coverings already hanging before those dates. That retrofit gap is exactly what state rental minimum standards have begun to close, starting with Victoria's rule, in force since 1 December 2025; the picture in NSW and Queensland is different, and we cover each separately.