On 12 July, the PIA hosted a breakfast meeting at The Boathouse café in Maribyrnong, Melbourne, with attendees hearing about recent cooperation with the Fire Protection Association Australia (FPAA) to promote better standards in the fire protection market.
Ron Astall, PIA Councillor, opened the meeting and provided attendees with an overview of PIA activities for 2017. Keith Sanders, Executive Officer – Marketing and Statistics, then presented an overview of pump industry statistics.
Following the opening presentations, attendees heard from guest speaker, Brett Dundules, Senior Technical Officer at the FPAA, on ‘The advocacy of FPAA Australia and working with industry stakeholders’. Mr Dundules provided an outline of FPAA activities in the fire protection sector, and discussed a few of the issues the organisation has experienced with getting government legislation to keep up-to-date with industry standards.
Mr Dundules’ presentation was of particular interest to attendees as it included a progress report on recent cooperation between the PIA and FPAA to update industry standards. The FPAA has played an important role in this project as it is the leading body in the sector and is very active in negotiating with government to improve standards and minimise risk.
With the support of the FPAA, the PIA has submitted a Proposal for Change (PFC) for AS2941-2013 Fire Pumps to the Australian Building Codes Board. The proposal is for the current AS2941-2013 to be nominated specifically in the National Construction Code (NNC) and not be a secondary reference in the sprinkler and hydrant codes.
This would mean that the standard would directly be covered by legislation and improve compliance.
The meeting was closed with a Q&A chaired by Ron Astall on various topics of technical interest.
