Access standards, and what they require
Access work on a building is governed by more than one document, and they do different jobs. This page sets out which is which, in plain terms, for occupational therapists, property owners and anyone holding a surveyor's list.
Nothing here is legal advice, and it is not a substitute for the building surveyor or access consultant on your project. Certification and sign-off remain theirs.
The Disability Discrimination Act
The Disability Discrimination Act 1992 makes it unlawful to discriminate against a person on the basis of disability, including by failing to provide access to premises the public uses. It is the head of power. It does not, on its own, tell you what a ramp has to look like.
Sources: Disability Discrimination Act 1992
The Premises Standards
The Disability (Access to Premises — Buildings) Standards 2010 came into effect on 1 May 2011. They are made under the Disability Discrimination Act, and they are what turn a general obligation into specific building requirements. They contain an Access Code, and they apply to new building work and to the parts of an existing building affected by new work, rather than to every existing building as it stands.
Meeting the Premises Standards gives protection against a complaint under the Act, for the matters they cover.
Sources: Disability (Access to Premises — Buildings) Standards 2010 · Guideline on the application of the Premises Standards, Australian Human Rights Commission
Who this actually applies to
The Premises Standards apply to specified categories of building: boarding houses and similar Class 1b buildings, apartment buildings with short-term rental accommodation, and Class 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 buildings, which covers shops, offices, factories, warehouses, public assembly buildings and the like. Public transport buildings are covered separately.
A detached house, or one of a group of attached dwellings such as a townhouse or a villa unit, is not in that list. If you are putting a ramp on your own home, there is generally no legal requirement under the Premises Standards for it to comply with AS 1428.1 at all.
That does not make the standard irrelevant to a home. The dimensions in AS 1428.1 exist because a steeper or narrower ramp is genuinely harder to use safely, and an occupational therapist who specifies a gradient for a private home is applying a clinical judgement about the person using it, not citing a regulation. Where an OT has specified a gradient, a landing or a handrail arrangement, that judgement is followed as written.
Sources: Premises Standards, section 2.1, Buildings to which Standards apply
The National Construction Code, and where the numbers actually live
The National Construction Code sets Performance Requirements, and gives Deemed-to-Satisfy provisions that are one accepted way of meeting them. For access, those provisions call up the Australian Standards.
The Premises Standards name the standard for each element. Ramps are clause 7 of AS 1428.1. Stairways are clause 8. Tactile ground surface indicators sit under AS/NZS 1428.4.1, and slip resistance under AS 4586.
The current referenced edition of AS 1428.1 is the 2021 edition, effective from 29 July 2025. NCC 2022 Amendment 2 and the amended Premises Standards both took effect that day, and the Access Code now references AS 1428.1:2021 in place of the 2009 edition. Anything written against the 2009 edition, including material published before that date, is out of date, which matters when checking a specification or a supplier's published figures.
The standards themselves are published by Standards Australia and are not free documents. The dimensions for each item on a job are taken from the current edition and shown on the installation detail supplied at handover.
Sources: Premises Standards, Schedule 1 Access Code · The amended Premises Standards and the NCC, Australian Building Codes Board · Understanding the NCC, Australian Building Codes Board
When a building cannot meet the Deemed-to-Satisfy provisions
A Deemed-to-Satisfy solution is not the only route to compliance. Where it cannot be met, a Performance Solution can be developed instead: a design that meets the Performance Requirement by another means, assessed and accepted by the building surveyor or certifier.
This is the normal path on buildings where the structure cannot be altered. A heritage-listed building where nothing may be fixed to the fabric, a leased tenancy where the make-good clause forbids permanent alteration, a site where the available run will not accommodate the required gradient: in each case the deemed-to-satisfy answer may be physically unavailable, and a Performance Solution is how the project proceeds.
The term changed. Before NCC 2019 this was called an Alternative Solution. Documentation still using that term predates the change.
Sources: Performance Solutions, Australian Building Codes Board · NCC Performance Solution Process handbook
Where a freestanding modular ramp fits
A modular aluminium ramp system is freestanding and demountable. It needs no footings, no excavation and no fixing to the building, and it can be removed or reconfigured later.
That makes it a practical answer in exactly the situations above: heritage fabric that may not be altered, a leased tenancy that must be handed back as found, a temporary need, or a site where a permanent structure is not warranted. The system does not decide compliance on its own, and the surveyor still assesses the installed result.
RampAssist modular access ramps can be configured to meet applicable accessibility requirements, subject to site conditions, final design, installation and any required building approval, certification or project-specific engineering.
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