Cawa has chosen to become involved in a set of working committees run by Outdoors WA to draw up Adventure Activity Standards for activities, such as rock climbing, abseiling, bushwalking etc. What does this mean? Who are Outdoors WA? What are Adventure Activity Standards (AAS)? What did CAWA hope to achieve and what was achieved?

Adventure Activity Standards : these are more than a code of practice. They are standards for commercial and non-commercial bodies that take out trips of dependant participants. A dependant participant is someone who expects to be provided with something. An outdoor experience, training, equipment, advice. It’s a slippery idea. But because of this expectation, and because the body/person running the trip is supposed to have knowledge and expertise, this is taken to mean that more than the normal duty of care is owed by the organiser.

The standards themselves are supposed to be voluntary . They are not laws or regulations. However if anyone needs a law or a regulation they may grab the AAS. So there is a concern that the AASs may become something that restricts activities and access. CALM may use them to bar access to CALM managed land. This is partly why CAWA has taken an interest. In Victoria, the first state to get AASs, the alternative approach has been taken by the Victorian Climbing Club. This is to dissociate themselves from the AASs and set up and maintain their own risk management standards. This appears to be feasible for the VCC. They are a large and influential club with a strong relationship with DOC. It may yet be a necessary thing for CAWA if we are to have dependant trips, like beginners meets.

See the Victorian Standard at http://www.orc.org.au/aasdocuments/AAS_Edition2_Rock Climbing.pdf

Outdoors WA: This appears to be a quasi non-government organisation (quango) set up at the behest of Tourism Ministry to draw in members of the “Outdoor Industry” for purposes of drafting AASs. See the extract below from Tourism.wa.gov.au

14 May 2007

“Safety standards in the adventure tourism industry will be further boosted thanks to a new State Government initiative.

Tourism Minister Sheila McHale said Outdoors WA, the peak industry body for outdoor adventure activities in Western Australia, had developed the Adventure Activity Standards (AAS) to improve standards in WA’s tourism industry.

Tourism Council Western Australia (TCWA) has received $333,000 in Government funding to assist development of Adventure Activity Standards. The funding will be used to improve the National Tourism Accreditation Program (NTAP), obtain ISO 9001 endorsement, expand the customer feedback system, and provide greater verification of accredited businesses to ensure they deliver high service standards.

Outdoors WA, in association with the Department of Sport and Recreation, will present forums providing an introduction to the Adventure Activity Standards. “

Outdoors WA is run by a voluntary management committee of eight people chaired by Terry Hewitt of Adventure Out. There is a paid Admin Officer, the “Executive Officer”, who does most of the visible work, convening the working groups and possibly drafting AASs. This is Ralph Gur. The last AGM lists 28 members, probably most of whom are commercial, scouting and education. Looking at the published minutes it’s not entirely clear what ODWA’s prime line of business is. Probably supporting Ralph in his management of AAS development.

In their documentation (and in the words of the minister) they describe themselves as as “The Peak Body for the Outdoor Adventure Activity Industry in WA”. What does that mean? they’re people centric, they’re trying to influence and motivate, so words like “peak” and “premier” tend to occur a lot, and are probably only a bit of spin.

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So what happened? We attended one meeting where the ODWA members were mostly absent. There was a DEC person, two Leave-No-Trace environmental people, a educationalist, and I think there might have been one commercial person. This was odd for standards that would impact most heavily on the commercial operators. But possibly they had access to the document through being members of ODWA and Ralph was their rep?

Our aim was to clarify what the document applied to. Cawa trips comprise people who make their own decisions, have their own gear, and come and go as they please. They won’t stand in a line and take instructions, most won’t sign anything, and it’s difficult to get information out of them, even whether they’re coming on the trip or not. To apply an AAS to such a trip would be totally unworkable. The standard requires a lot of paperwork, personal details, instructor / participant ratios, site and activity plans and so on.

The fear is that the way the rock climbing AAS was initially drafted it was possible to class any group that included a novice or even inexperienced people as a dependant group. Which would put almost every climbing trip in breach of the AAS. Whether this was a real fear was debated. We didn’t get much sympathy for this position. There were statements trying to belittle any fears that the standard would effect club or individual activities. Rhetorical statements along the lines of, “how can you be scared of this, of course it doesn’t apply to you, how silly to think this would have any effect on you. Ha ha ha.”

Well verbal opinion that the standard can’t be interpreted as applying , can not be made to apply, can not make us look delinquent; that opinion is not really worth anything. What matters is what’s written in the document. We thought that it wouldn’t cost anything to make it quite clear that if you’re not providing expertise or gear or instruction then no matter how inexperienced people are on the trip you are not responsible for them. You have the normal duty of care to help those in trouble and to warn people if you see them doing crazy things. But if there is no contractual relationship, commercial or otherwise, then we can’t make decisions for others. Mainly because they will just ignore us and secondly because we don’t claim to be a training organisation or to have special skills. The people organising things do it because they volunteer to organise not because they’re any good at climbing.

Now you’d think this is a pretty simple idea. But so much of the time it just hits a brick wall. l don’t think people dislike us or that they don’t care, it’s just that organisations dealing with dependants seem to have a blind spot. To them the whole world seems to consist of tourists and school children.

Groups of people who are comfortable with what they’re doing and who can take along their less experienced friends and get them up and down the hill, they don’t see much of groups like these. They don’t realise how much of outdoor activity can be regulated out of existence.

The modern world. Everyone sues. Every injured party can find an ambulance chaser to dig for some basis for compensation. People become defensive. They don’t do anything that might expose them to fault.

No one’s interested to hear that standards/regulations/codes of practice might not apply to them, that they would be in a strong position, that they would win the court case easily. Winning can be as costly as losing. No one wants to be a target for compensation case. And no one wants to look silly by contradicting people who say there’s nothing to worry about. So what do they do? They do nothing. They don’t go out, they don’t organise trips, they don’t get involved. Not explicitly, no, they’re just too busy.

The AAS isn’t a law. Why can’t it say that if people are independent agents and make their own decisions then everything’s ok and whoever co-ordinates the trip isn’t considered as being bound by the standard. But no, so many want to leave it a bit vague, leave that seed of doubt, the little wedge of uncertainty. That little wedge that discourages co-operative action, that drives people apart, that slowly dries up organisations like CAWA.

CAWA has had problems with trips. Few people organise them. The unsueables, people paying alimony, students. And sometimes those who don’t think about it.

What did we get for all the discussion. We helped with some of the details in the document. We tried to have trips like those run by CAWA defined explicitly as non-dependant trips not falling under the standard. This was very difficult and is only noted in one sentence in the preamble and in one additional definition. This may be enough. Then again we havn’t seen the final document so our changes may have been rejected.

How do we stand with regard to the Adventure Activity Standard for Rock Climbing? At the moment if we ever run a dependant trip, like a beginners trip or belay practice, then we should do one of two things;

Comply with the AAS

or

Set up our own standards and comply with them.

Complying with the AAS is probably impractical. Dependant trips require NOLRS certified leaders. So we would then set up our own standards. This is what the Victorian Climbing Club has done. Their standards are on the internet, we could adapt them for our use.

To be credible in following our own standards we shall also have to follow the VCC’s example and explicitly NOT endorse the Adventure Activity Standards. The Committee and CAWA should seriously think about this and take some documented decisions. The problem is that because of our participation in the process CAWA’s name is all over the standards. We are acknowledged as contributors in several individual cases on more than one AAS. If we don’t set up our own standards and if we don’t formally withhold endorsement of the AAS, then any jury seeing our name on the AAS will be hard put to believe that it doesn’t apply to us. We need a counter argument. The VCC has done quite well in not participating at all and keeping its name off the Victorian AAS.

We must set up our own risk management standards.

We must pass a minuted resolution not to recognise the Adventure Activity Standards.

We might also try to get our name off the AASs. I have insisted my name not appear, but this has been very unpopular and may not be complied with.

In these standards and in any legislation or rules, we must struggle to create a space where we can stand, where we can continue to climb without hindrance. This is endless. We can never win, we can only retain what we have.

So to all the regulatory bodies, the parliament the parks to everyone who has some power, we ask for clarity. We ask not to be confused or bundled in with other types of organisation.

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