But it is your fault that you allowed yourself to be deceived, it is your fault that you bought the cable and it is your fault that you then put it on sale.
We are talking about cheap cable from China, and a Chinese quality certification.
So on that basis, it's the electricians' fault - they bought cheap Chinese cable (from a local wholesaler) without doing their own tests ?
IMO the situation is fairly simple - whoever imports a product into a country/area is responsible for making sure it meets local regulations/standards. That is how EU law works - the responsibility for meeting EU regulations rests with whoever imports it and first places it on the market". So if ${big retailer} buys from a wholesaler then the wholesaler is responsible, if they buy it direct from (eg) China then they are responsible themselves.
I do agree, however, that this isn't sufficient. The responsibility isn't, as you suggest, to retest stuff - but to look into the supply chain and decide if the existing qualification/certification is credible and reliable. I too have worked for a company that imported direct, though I wasn't involved in the buying process - so I do have some idea of what it's like (plenty of 'internal chatter' to spread the 'news').
I can only assume that the wholesalers (note plural) involved all decided that the evidence being offered was credible. Easy to say otherwise in hindsight.
Woolworths did not buy from China they bought the goods from a firm based in their own country.
Indeed.
This is where I disagree with BAS. BAS takes the point that if it comes from China then it could be dodgy, and anyone buying it - even through a local supplier - is therefore responsible for assessing it themselves. I'm trying to figure out where that stops - the electrician buying the cable is doing it professionally - so should he also be responsible ?
We also buy from UK manufacturers but they in turn buy from China and if we buy items from the high street which names associated with UK we assume it's made in UK.
Really ? I don't assume anything about where stuff is made - other than it'll be made wherever someone thinks they can get it done cheapest.
But a cable which will only last 5 years instead of 50 years you would have to have kept it for 6 years to know it's faulty.
They have "accelerated" tests for such things. It doesn't always work, and it needs highly specialist knowledge to work out, but it's often as "simple" as running at elevated temperature which (typically) accelerates the chemical reactions.
What I find interesting is that Woolworths is being charged with the cost of replacement. In the past recalls for items like MCB's the MCB's is replaced but claims for time, and fuel used to replace it have not been met.
I can't help thinking this is to do with the scale of the costs involved.
Swapping out an MCB is typically not a big job - PITA if you have to visit lots of customers, but not in the grand scheme of things a huge job.
A full rewire is a different matter. I wonder if a trade group effectively threatened mass legal action to recover losses and the authorities decided to pre-empt that ?
BTW - it's not just Woolies having to pay, just that they appear to have been the biggest seller and hence carry the largest chunk of the cost.
More work for the sparkies, though I can imagine a lot of households will be a bit peeved about the disruption.
