A child safety law !

A lot of people rely on fly screens to safeguard children as a barrier to them falling out of windows, but such accidents feature regularly on the evening television news - and legislation is now passing through state parliament to solve this problem.

This law will require that all windows above the ground floor be fitted with a safety lock that stops the window opening more than 12.5 cm.    The remaining gap will provide ventilation, but make it impossible for the body of a child to fit through the opening.

Like many such laws, the intent is good, but achieving compliance may be an entirely different matter.  It is mentioned that Strata  and residential tenancy laws will be ammended to force owner corporations to fit these devices, but it is likely that childless couples and the elderly living in high rise accommodation will ignore this legislation.

Many will remember the attempts to force safety fencing on the owners of backyard swimming pools.   The onus was thrown onto local councils and compliance was spotty until the regularity of child drownings put teeth into the requirement.

Obviously, the first line of attack will be new homes.  It will probably be mandatory to have these devices fitted before councils can sign off on their required compliance certificate to allow tenancy.   It will also be relatively easy to force this requirement on those dealing in rental properties - but the sticking point will be compliance by the huge number of owner/occupiers who make up the bulk of " suburbia ".

Probably, the government will take the " softly  - softly " approach.  Many responsible parents will see the wisdom of installing safety window locks and willingly comply.   The state Housing Commission will no doubt be required to install this protection across it's entire housing stock of multi level dwellings, hence there will be a rapid improvement in overall safety.

Getting every above ground floor window in New South Wales fitted with this protection is likely to be a slow, hard grind.    Perhaps the services of the insurance industry can be used to help.    It stands to reason that preventing children falling out of windows also stops thieves getting in - and maybe that could be a requirement of insurance cover.

At least this legislation is a step in the right direction.   Every safety device that is installed will be a potential life saved - even if full compliance is some years into the future.