5 FEBRUARY 2024 OCN Chair, Fred Tuckwell, discusses safety concerns surrounding battery-related fires linked to e-bikes and e-scooters with Michael McLaren on Radio 2GB. Listen to the interview:> https://ocn.org.au/Fred-Tuckwell
23 JANUARY 2024 OCN made a submission on the proposed reforms to fire safety regulations in NSW. Read submission:> OCN Submission - Fire Safety Reforms January 2024 Related content:> https://ocn.org.au/product/fire-safety-by-law-proforma/
Owners of e-bikes or e-scooters will not be allowed to charge their batteries inside their apartments under rules developed for strata schemes concerned about fire risk. OCN has drafted a model by-law on the management of e-bikes and e-scooters after a series of fires sparked by lithium-ion batteries. Read the full article published on the ABC website here You can also listen to the ABC Morning Show interview here Related article [...]
The state government taskforce into dangerous flammable cladding has deemed more than 500 buildings a low priority, despite their facades potentially posing unacceptable fire risks. NSW Auditor-General Margaret Crawford made the finding in a review of reforms targeting unsafe cladding since the material supercharged London’s deadly Grenfell Tower fire tragedy in 2017. Crawford said identification of buildings in the immediate aftermath was hampered by a lack of building records, but found [...]
18 December 2021 Owners of a landmark apartment block in Sydney’s eastern suburbs face a long wait before they can move in after the NSW building watchdog ordered an immediate halt to their almost complete $50 million redevelopment. The watchdog has handed the owners of Skye, which overlooks Tamarama Beach, a stop-work notice and an order preventing them from moving in because fire sprinklers were not installed in seven of the [...]
21 July 2021 Sydney developer Toplace has agreed to be liable for any structural defects in its new Skyview towers complex for 20 years, in order to get buyers into their apartments. The agreement is the first of its kind and is expected to set a new benchmark of accountability for developers across the state. Dominic Gianni The Riotact.com > Read the full article here
22 MARCH 2021 Australia has more than 3,400 buildings with flammable cladding. In Victoria alone, at least 71 of these buildings have been classified as “extreme risk” and another 368 as “high risk”. Despite the tragic evidence of the risks of cladding fires, rectification work had been completed on only 11 of these buildings by February 2021. The estimated cost of making these buildings safe is in the billions. State governments [...]
15 FEBRUARY 2021 Construction on the first projects to start under a three-year program to remove combustible cladding from 225 high-risk apartment complexes in NSW will kick off around the middle of the year, the government in that state says. In an announcement last week, NSW Minister for Better Regulation Kevin Anderson unveiled details of the state’s cladding rectification scheme which was announced in last October’s budget. Labelled Project Remediate, the [...]
18 NOVEMBER 2020 Owners of buildings with flammable cladding in NSW will still need to pay tens of thousands of dollars per apartment to rectify their complexes after the NSW Government refused to Victoria’s lead in paying for flammable cladding to be rectified. Whilst the preference would be for the government to pay for the cost of remediation, Karen Stiles, Executive Officer for OCN welcomed both the announcement of the low [...]
17 NOVEMBER 2020 Apartment owners forced to replace flammable cladding on high-risk buildings across NSW will be able to access interest-free loans as part of a $1 billion government program over the next three years aimed at helping to resolve the crisis. The program, which will be unveiled in the state budget on Tuesday, includes $139 million to establish and offer technical support to owners for the remediation of at-risk buildings. [...]
Owners Corporation Network
We firmly believe that the internet should be available and accessible to anyone, and are committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of circumstance and ability.
To fulfill this, we aim to adhere as strictly as possible to the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG 2.1) at the AA level. These guidelines explain how to make web content accessible to people with a wide array of disabilities. Complying with those guidelines helps us ensure that the website is accessible to all people: blind people, people with motor impairments, visual impairment, cognitive disabilities, and more.
This website utilizes various technologies that are meant to make it as accessible as possible at all times. We utilize an accessibility interface that allows persons with specific disabilities to adjust the website’s UI (user interface) and design it to their personal needs.
Additionally, the website utilizes an AI-based application that runs in the background and optimizes its accessibility level constantly. This application remediates the website’s HTML, adapts Its functionality and behavior for screen-readers used by the blind users, and for keyboard functions used by individuals with motor impairments.
If you’ve found a malfunction or have ideas for improvement, we’ll be happy to hear from you. You can reach out to the website’s operators by using the following email enquiries@ocn.org.au
Our website implements the ARIA attributes (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) technique, alongside various different behavioral changes, to ensure blind users visiting with screen-readers are able to read, comprehend, and enjoy the website’s functions. As soon as a user with a screen-reader enters your site, they immediately receive a prompt to enter the Screen-Reader Profile so they can browse and operate your site effectively. Here’s how our website covers some of the most important screen-reader requirements, alongside console screenshots of code examples:
Screen-reader optimization: we run a background process that learns the website’s components from top to bottom, to ensure ongoing compliance even when updating the website. In this process, we provide screen-readers with meaningful data using the ARIA set of attributes. For example, we provide accurate form labels; descriptions for actionable icons (social media icons, search icons, cart icons, etc.); validation guidance for form inputs; element roles such as buttons, menus, modal dialogues (popups), and others. Additionally, the background process scans all of the website’s images and provides an accurate and meaningful image-object-recognition-based description as an ALT (alternate text) tag for images that are not described. It will also extract texts that are embedded within the image, using an OCR (optical character recognition) technology. To turn on screen-reader adjustments at any time, users need only to press the Alt+1 keyboard combination. Screen-reader users also get automatic announcements to turn the Screen-reader mode on as soon as they enter the website.
These adjustments are compatible with all popular screen readers, including JAWS and NVDA.
Keyboard navigation optimization: The background process also adjusts the website’s HTML, and adds various behaviors using JavaScript code to make the website operable by the keyboard. This includes the ability to navigate the website using the Tab and Shift+Tab keys, operate dropdowns with the arrow keys, close them with Esc, trigger buttons and links using the Enter key, navigate between radio and checkbox elements using the arrow keys, and fill them in with the Spacebar or Enter key.Additionally, keyboard users will find quick-navigation and content-skip menus, available at any time by clicking Alt+1, or as the first elements of the site while navigating with the keyboard. The background process also handles triggered popups by moving the keyboard focus towards them as soon as they appear, and not allow the focus drift outside of it.
Users can also use shortcuts such as “M” (menus), “H” (headings), “F” (forms), “B” (buttons), and “G” (graphics) to jump to specific elements.
We aim to support the widest array of browsers and assistive technologies as possible, so our users can choose the best fitting tools for them, with as few limitations as possible. Therefore, we have worked very hard to be able to support all major systems that comprise over 95% of the user market share including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera and Microsoft Edge, JAWS and NVDA (screen readers), both for Windows and for MAC users.
Despite our very best efforts to allow anybody to adjust the website to their needs, there may still be pages or sections that are not fully accessible, are in the process of becoming accessible, or are lacking an adequate technological solution to make them accessible. Still, we are continually improving our accessibility, adding, updating and improving its options and features, and developing and adopting new technologies. All this is meant to reach the optimal level of accessibility, following technological advancements. For any assistance, please reach out to enquiries@ocn.org.au
