The National Office of the Royal Life Saving Society has just released a document titled "State of the Aquatics Industry in Australia in 2010".  The document looked at 428 Aquatic Facilities Safety Assessments over the past 3 years and benchmarked the scores to determine a mean average score.  One critical failure of this document is that it does not contain data gathered by the Royal Life Saving Society Western Australia (Inc) so it can in no way be considered a national document.

The document indicated the average safety assessment score was 82% across these 428 facilities.  It is critical for Western Australia Aquatic Managers to understand that this score is not reflective of this state and the title of the report is most misleading. The naming of the report as the "State of the Industry" and the fact that it comes from the National Office of Royal Life Saving undermines the great work that has been achieved in Western Australia where the average safety assessment score is in fact 92%.

 The Board of LIWA Aquatics wish to convey to members and stakeholders across the state how disappointed (but not surprised) they are this data is being prompted as a snapshot of our industry nationally.  With our partners RLSSWA and the Local Government Insurance Scheme the Western Australian aquatic industry has worked incredibly hard to raise the standards over the past 10 years.  There are still improvements that can be made in the area of pool safety in Western Australia but the standard is well above the results reported in this document.  A further response will be included in the December edition of Aquatic Recreation Australia.

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