That gap is what this guide is about. Every Australian state and territory expects a building's fire and life safety measures to be kept working, and each asks for the proof in a different shape. NSW wants a statement lodged with council. Victoria wants a report signed by the owner and available at the building within 24 hours of a request. Queensland wants a copy of the occupier statement sent to the Queensland Fire Department's Commissioner, South Australia a verification sent to council. In Western Australia, Tasmania, the ACT and the Northern Territory, the main instruments ask for no annual statement at all, only records that stand up when someone asks for them.
Eight jurisdictions, one table
The table scrolls sideways to show every column.
| Jurisdiction | Main instrument | Annual document | Who signs or issues it | Where it goes | Maintenance basis |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NSW | EP&A (Development Certification and Fire Safety) Regulation 2021, Parts 10 and 12 | Annual fire safety statement, plus supplementary statements for critical measures | The owner or an authorised agent, after an accredited practitioner (fire safety) has assessed each measure within the previous 3 months | Council, with a copy and the fire safety schedule to Fire and Rescue NSW, and displayed in the building | AS 1851-2012 for the activities it covers, from 13 February 2026, unless an approved performance solution covers them. Records on site for 7 years |
| VIC | Building Regulations 2018, Part 15 | Annual essential safety measures report (AESMR) | The owner signs (reg 224(b)) | Not lodged. Made available for inspection at the building within 24 hours of a request from the municipal building surveyor or chief officer | As set in the occupancy permit or maintenance determination. AS 1851-2012 accepted where these name AS 1851-2005 or earlier |
| QLD | Fire Services Act 1990, s 146M, Building Fire Safety Regulation 2008, Part 5, and QDC MP6.1 | Occupier statement, at the intervals in QDC MP6.1. The Queensland Fire Department expects one each year | The occupier, or the owner where there is no occupier | Copy to the Commissioner within 10 business days, and kept with the maintenance records for 2 years | Intervals in QDC MP6.1, work by an appropriately qualified person |
| SA | Planning, Development and Infrastructure (General) Regulations 2017, reg 94 | Annual verification of essential safety provisions (Form 3, the ESP maintenance certificate) | The owner gives it to council. Form 3 is signed by the owner or the owner's delegate and by each person who carried out the maintenance | Council, within 60 business days after the end of each calendar year | Annual maintenance and testing to the relevant Ministerial building standard |
| WA | Building Regulations 2012, reg 48A | None | No statement. The owner of an existing Class 2 to 9 building holds the duty | Nothing is lodged | Measures must be capable of performing to the building standards that applied when each part was approved or built |
| TAS | Building Act 2016, Part 14, and Building Regulations 2016, Part 7 | None in the Act or Regulations. An approved schedule of maintenance instead | No statement. The responsible owner, including a body corporate, holds the duty | Records kept 10 years away from the building, with a copy on the premises, and given to the permit authority on request | The schedule of maintenance approved by a building surveyor |
| ACT | Emergencies Act 2004, s 95, and ACT Fire & Rescue guideline FSG-05 | None | No statement. The occupier holds the duty | Records to ACT Fire & Rescue on request, within 48 hours under FSG-05 | AS 1851 or AS/NZS 2293.2 as in force from time to time, the standard in the building approval, or one prescribed by regulation, for appliances installed under a fire service direction (s 95). FSG-05 applies this to installed systems in Class 2 to 9 buildings |
| NT | Fire and Emergency Act 1996, s 27A, and Fire and Emergency Regulations 1996, reg 11 and Schedule 2 | None | No statement. The owner of a prescribed building holds the duty | Nothing is lodged. NT Fire and Rescue Service inspects prescribed buildings and expects records within 48 hours of a request under its advisory note | Relevant standards (reg 11(6)(a)). The NTFRS advisory note names AS 1851-2012 for most measures and AS/NZS 2293.2 for emergency lighting and exit signs |
Strip away the forms and the same four things matter everywhere: a list of the building's measures, a standard each measure is kept to, a record for every routine, and an owner or occupier who holds the duty even when a contractor does every hour of the work. Get those right and each state's paperwork is a summary of what you already hold.
New South Wales: the annual fire safety statement
The owner of a building with essential fire safety measures, other than a Class 1a or 10 building or a temporary structure, must give council an annual fire safety statement (s 89). Each measure must have been assessed by an accredited practitioner (fire safety), and the building inspected, within the 3 months before the statement is issued (s 88). It is due within 12 months after the last statement was given to council or, if a fire safety certificate was issued in the previous 12 months, within 12 months of that certificate, whichever is later. A copy goes with the fire safety schedule to the Fire Commissioner, and both are displayed prominently in the building. Late lodgement is a separate offence for each week it continues (s 89(3)). Critical measures flagged in the schedule need supplementary statements at the shorter intervals the schedule sets (s 91).
Each accredited practitioner signs the statement or provides a separate signed record. Under the approved form, the person who makes the owner's declaration cannot be one of those practitioners or their employer, employee or direct associate, and an agent needs the owner's prior authority.
Since 13 February 2026, inspection, testing and servicing must follow AS 1851-2012 for every activity the standard covers, unless an approved performance solution addresses it, and the AS 1851 records must be kept on site at the building for at least 7 years (s 81A). Our guides to AS 1851 in NSW and the annual fire safety statement evidence pack cover the routines and the statement in detail.
Victoria: the annual essential safety measures report
Part 15 of the Building Regulations 2018 covers Class 1b, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 buildings, Class 4 parts and places of public entertainment (reg 213). The occupancy permit lists each measure, its required performance, and the frequency and type of maintenance (reg 194). Where no occupancy permit was needed, or an order required the measure, a maintenance determination does the same job (reg 215).
The owner must make sure the report is prepared within the 28 days before each anniversary of the earlier of the first occupancy permit (or amendment to it) and the first maintenance determination that required a measure. For measures in buildings constructed before 1 July 1994, it is the 28 days before 13 June each year (reg 223). The owner signs it in the approved form, stating that all reasonable steps were taken to keep each measure operating, inspected, tested and maintained (reg 224). Nothing is lodged. Instead, within 24 hours of a request from the municipal building surveyor or the fire authority's chief officer, the owner must make available for inspection at the building the last 10 years of reports, the maintenance schedules and determinations, and the records of every inspection, test and repair. The 10 year limit applies to the reports only. The maintenance records have no end date (reg 225).
Where a permit or determination names AS 1851-2005 or an earlier edition, compliance with AS 1851-2012 counts. An owner who switches must stay on AS 1851-2012 for that measure and say so in the report (regs 196, 217 and 224). The Building and Plumbing Commission, the trading name of the Victorian Building Authority, approves the report form and publishes guidance. The council's municipal building surveyor and the fire services' chief officer can call for the records.
Queensland: the occupier statement
Queensland puts the duty on the occupier, who must maintain every prescribed fire safety installation at all times to a standard of safety and reliability in the event of fire (Fire Services Act 1990, s 146M). The Building Fire Safety Regulation 2008 sets the detail. Each installation must be maintained by an appropriately qualified person and inspected and tested at the intervals in Queensland Development Code part MP6.1 (s 54). The person who did the maintenance must give the occupier a critical defect notice in the approved form within 24 hours (s 53), and repairs the record of maintenance calls for must be done within one month unless there is a reasonable excuse (s 54(4)).
Each record of maintenance names the installation, the maintainer and their licence number, the date, the work, the result and any repair, and carries the maintainer's signed statement (s 55). The occupier prepares the occupier statement at the intervals in MP6.1, sends the Commissioner a copy within 10 business days, and keeps a copy with the records for 2 years (s 55A). The Queensland Fire Department's fire safety management tool expects a copy to reach the Commissioner each year, and it is plain about evidence: for extinguishers and hose reels, a tag, an invoice or a summary report is not an acceptable record of maintenance.
High occupancy buildings, including Class 2 and 3 buildings over 25 metres and certain workplaces normally employing 30 or more workers, also need a fire safety adviser appointed by the occupier, holding a building fire safety qualification issued within the last 3 years (s 34).
South Australia: annual verification to council
Where a schedule of essential safety provisions has been issued, the owner must not use the building unless each provision has been maintained and tested every calendar year to the relevant Ministerial building standard (reg 94). Within 60 business days after the end of each calendar year, the owner gives council the Form 3 verification, the ESP maintenance certificate, confirming the work was done and that there are no outstanding defects, or that steps are under way to fix them. Form 3 is signed by the owner or the owner's delegate and by each person who carried out the maintenance. Where more than one party maintained the building, each sends its own Form 3.
Class 1b buildings, and Class 3 to 8 and 9b buildings with a rise in storeys of no more than 2 and no more than 500 square metres of floor area, do not have to send Form 3 unless council requires it. Council can do that where the provisions were installed under a condition of approval or a performance solution, or the building has had a fire safety defect notice. Class 2, 9a and 9c buildings are never exempt. For aged care homes, which are Class 9c, the fire measures sit alongside the records Standard 4 of the Aged Care Quality Standards expects. The maintenance duty still applies, and an authorised officer can ask for written proof within 48 hours.
Western Australia: a duty with no annual statement
WA's Building Regulations 2012 set no annual statement for existing buildings. Regulation 48A requires the owner of an existing Class 2 to 9 building to make sure its safety measures, from fire integrity and egress to detection, warning systems, lifts and standby power, can still perform to the building standards that applied when each part was approved or built. No maintenance standard is named and nothing is lodged.
That does not make it lighter. The owner's own records are the only proof the measures can still perform. One practical way to show it is to run AS 1851 routines and keep their records.
Tasmania: the schedule of maintenance
Tasmania works through a schedule of maintenance. The responsible owner, which includes a body corporate and an occupier contracted to maintain the services, must have the schedule prepared and approved by a building surveyor, review it each specified period and comply with it (Building Act 2016, s 206). Maintenance means inspections, monitoring, testing, periodic servicing, minor repairs and reporting faults (Building Regulations 2016, reg 74). Records are kept for at least 10 years away from the building, with a copy on the premises (reg 76A), and must be produced to the permit authority, an authorised officer or the fire service's Chief Officer on request.
Australian Capital Territory: a proper maintenance standard
Under the Emergencies Act 2004, an occupier commits an offence if a fire appliance provided or installed under a fire service direction (s 92) is not maintained to a proper maintenance standard. That means AS 1851 or AS/NZS 2293.2 as in force from time to time, the standard approved with the building approval, or a standard prescribed by regulation (s 95(2) and (6)). An occupier who knows a fire appliance is damaged or defective and does not repair or replace it also commits an offence (s 95(3)).
ACT Fire & Rescue's guideline FSG-05 (August 2023) applies these standards to installed fire protection systems in all Class 2 to 9 buildings. It expects the fire safety schedule, logbooks and yearly condition reports within 48 hours of a request, and written notice of critical defects.
Northern Territory: prescribed buildings
The Fire and Emergency Regulations 1996 list prescribed buildings in Schedule 2. They include health care, child care, education, places of public entertainment and assembly, hotels, hostels and other shared accommodation, offices, shopping complexes, factories and warehouses, licensed entertainment venues and laboratories. The owner of a prescribed building must make sure fire alarms and other warning apparatus, exit lights, emergency lighting and firefighting equipment are maintained in accordance with relevant standards, and that AS 3745 is applied to installed safety systems (reg 11(5) and (6)).
NT Fire and Rescue Service inspects prescribed buildings regularly (Fire and Emergency Act 1996, s 27A). Its advisory note on maintenance names AS 1851-2012 for most measures and AS/NZS 2293.2 for emergency lighting and exit signs. It also expects the owner's records to be available within 48 hours of a request. Nothing is lodged each year.
Running a multi state portfolio
The routines behind all of this are close. What changes at the border is the paperwork, the person who signs it and the clock it runs on. The common failures follow from that.
- A Victorian building run on the NSW model, waiting for a lodgement date that never comes, while nobody could produce the records within 24 hours if asked.
- A WA, ACT or NT building treated as low risk because nothing is lodged, so nobody checks whether the records exist.
- A measures list that no longer matches the building. In the Victorian survey, 34 per cent of buildings had inconsistencies between the occupancy permit and what was on site.
- Tags and invoices standing in for records, and defects closed by email with no retest.
The answer is the same everywhere: one record per measure, holding the standard it is kept to, built from each visit as it happens. Each state's document is then a view of the same records.
Where FMIQ Nexus helps
In FMIQ Nexus each measure can be held as an asset on its building with its routines. Visits, defects and their follow up jobs are recorded against it as the work is done, so the records behind each state's statement or report are in one place when the date comes round. FMIQ Nexus keeps the records. The owner or occupier signs, and in NSW the accredited practitioner assesses.
A short checklist
- For each building, you know which document lists its measures: fire safety schedule, occupancy permit or maintenance determination, schedule of essential safety provisions, or schedule of maintenance.
- Every measure on that list has a routine at the standard the document names.
- Every routine has a record with the date, the person, their licence where one is required, the result and any defect.
- Every critical defect has a fix and a retest recorded inside the state's window, and every other defect has a recorded plan.
- Every building's due date is in the calendar: 12 months from the last NSW statement, the Victorian anniversary window, 60 business days after 31 December in SA, the MP6.1 interval in Queensland.
- Records are kept to the longest rule in the portfolio (in Victoria all inspection, testing and maintenance records with no end date, and in Tasmania at least 10 years) and can be produced within 24 hours.
Six ticks and the annual document is a summary. Fewer, and it is a project.