“Australian Codes of Practice….

I was ‘robustly corrected’ this week when I referred to them as ARPANSA Codes of Practice and then again later as National Codes of Practice. The correction was that they are Australian Codes of Practice, published by ARPANSA.

While ARPANSA does a lot of work to get them to users, they are, in fact, drafted by the Radiation Health Committee (RHC), state and territory regulators, approved by the Radiation Health and Safety Advisory Council and THEN published by ARPANSA. ARPANSA is not a National regulator, even though they do support them under the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Act (link).

The comparison I was given was “It isn’t referred to as Penguin Books Pride and Prejudice” just because they were the publisher. Fair point.

The following is from the introduction of the Code for the Safe Transport of Radioactive Material, RPSC-2, and is present in most other ARPANSA published documents that fit the purpose of a fundamental, code or guide.

“The Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) publishes Fundamentals, Codes and Guides in the Radiation Protection Series (RPS), which promote national policies and practices that protect human health and the environment from harmful effects of radiation. ARPANSA develops these publications jointly with state and territory regulators through the Radiation Health Committee (RHC), which oversees the preparation of draft policies and standards with the view of their uniform implementation in all Australian jurisdictions. Following agreement, the CEO of ARPANSA will seek the endorsement of the Radiation Health and Safety Advisory Council, and publish the document.”