News & Views

NECA welcomes the decision of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to establish a taskforce—including state electrical safety regulators—to determine how best to resolve the issue of any proposed removal of in situ Infinity branded cable.

“Safety is, and always has been, NECA’s concern in this situation,” says NECA CEO, Suresh Manickam. “NECA supports the ACCC process that is underway and we have confidence that the process will be thorough and considered.To this end, NECA calls on all stakeholders to allow the ACCC to do its job. Of concern to NECA is the suggestion that safety was not of paramount importance on this matter, and we challenge our detractors to the contrary,” added Mr Manickam.

As soon as it was discovered that these cables were non-compliant they were recalled. NECA notified its members immediately the recall was announced. As one of the founders of the Does it Comply? campaign NECA takes non-compliant products very seriously.

“This issue only serves to remind contractors that they should exercise extreme caution when purchasing products outside of the traditional electrical wholesaler environment, to avoid such situations reoccurring in the future,” added Mr Manickam.

Given the complexity of this matter, we suspected that it would not be resolved quickly. However, we believe most of the cable on the shelves of distributors, or in the vans of contractors, has now been returned. The focus is now on resolving the in situ matter, and with the taskforce in place, and meeting very shortly, we hope the ACCC will be able to assist our industry in finding the right solution to this complex and contentious matter in the very near future.

If any NECA member—or any other electrical contractor affected by this issue—needs further clarification they should contact NECA SA on (08) 8272 2966.