Children's toys containing magnets – being children's toys that are products designed or clearly intended for use in play by children under the age of 14 years.

This regulation addresses the risk of children from swallowing small-high powered magnets in toys.

Limited review of the mandatory safety standard for toys containing magnets

The mandatory standard for toys containing magnets was introduced in 2010 to reduce the risk of serious injury or death from children ingesting small high- powered magnets or magnetic components supplied with children's toys.

The mandatory standard covers requirements for design, construction, testing and information labelling. It was last updated in 2020 and references now outdated versions of the voluntary Australian, international, European and US standards.

The ACCC is conducting a limited review of the mandatory standard for toys containing magnets. The purpose of this limited review is to seek stakeholder views about:

·        referencing updated voluntary Australian and overseas standards that provide an equivalent or better level of safety

·        whether adding dynamic references is appropriate - so updates to referenced voluntary standards flow through to the mandatory standard.

The mandatory standard currently references the following 4 voluntary standards:

·        Australian and New Zealand standard: AS/NZS ISO 8124.1:2019 Safety of toys Part 1: Safety aspects related to mechanical and physical properties (direct adoption of the voluntary international standard)

o   clause 4.1 and 4.31 (with modifications)

·        International standard: ISO 8124-1:2018 Safety of toys – Part 1: Safety aspects related to mechanical and physical properties

o   clause 4.1 and 4.31 (with modifications)

·        European standard: EN 71-1:2014+A1:2018 Safety of toys - Part 1: Mechanical and physical properties

o   clause 4.23

·        US standard: ASTM F963-17 Standard Consumer Safety Specification for Toy Safety

o   clause 4.38

o   clause 8.5 and 8.9 (with modifications)

The limited review seeks views about allowing suppliers to comply with the most recent versions of the following voluntary standards:

·        Australian and New Zealand standard: AS/NZS ISO 8124.1:2023 Safety of toys Part 1: Safety aspects related to mechanical and physical properties

·        International standard: ISO 8124-1:2022/Amd 1:2025 Safety of toys – Part 1: Safety aspects related to mechanical and physical properties

·        European standard: EN 71-1:2026 Safety of toys - Part 1: Mechanical and physical properties

·        US standard: ASTM F963-23 Standard Consumer Safety Specification for Toy Safety.

Each of these updated voluntary standards have identical requirements for magnets and magnetic components in toys to their individual predecessors. We are seeking stakeholder views on whether to continue to reference the relevant clauses as those currently referenced in the mandatory standard, from each of these updated voluntary standards.