Pool safety signs in Western Australia: homes and facilities

In Western Australia the answer depends entirely on what kind of pool you have. At a private home, no CPR sign is required. At a public or commercial aquatic facility, one is mandatory, and the duty is written in a place almost nobody looks. WA is the only state in the country where the split runs this way, and it catches a lot of operators out.

Find yourself below.

If it is a pool at a private home

No CPR sign is required. The Building Regulations 2012 (WA) contain zero occurrences of "resuscitation" and zero of "CPR". We can find no signage duty for a home pool in Western Australia, and the three limits on that finding are set out further down this page.

What WA does require at a home is a compliant barrier, under regulation 50(2). The barrier is the regulated item, and the penalty attached to that duty is $5,000.

The standards WA calls up are AS 1926.1-2012 as modified by regulation 15B, together with AS 1926.2-2007. The regulation 15B modification is a Western Australian variation, so a barrier specification copied from an eastern states page will not necessarily match what applies here. Western Australia adopted NCC 2025 on 1 May 2026.

If you want a resuscitation chart at a home pool in WA, that is a choice rather than a duty, and a reasonable one. Skip to the signs.

If it is a public or commercial aquatic facility

A resuscitation notice is mandatory. This is a real legal obligation and it is the least known signage requirement in Australia.

The duty lives in the Health (Aquatic Facilities) Regulations 2007. Regulation 19(2) adopts the WA Department of Health's Code of practice for the design, construction, operation, management and maintenance of aquatic facilities, amended March 2024. Clause 2.25.1.4 of that Code sits under the heading "Mandatory signage" and reads:

"All aquatic facilities shall have one or more resuscitation notice installed in a prominent position that is easily seen by pool users and adjacent to the first aid area... Operators must ensure their resuscitation notices are kept up to date with the recommended procedure of the Resuscitation Council of Australia for Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation."

What the Code actually specifies, and what it does not

Two obligations only: placement and currency.

• Placement. Prominent, easily seen by pool users, and next to the first aid area. Note the last part. A notice in a prominent spot at the far end of the pool from the first aid station does not read as satisfying the clause as written.
• Currency. The procedure shown has to still be the recommended one. This is a maintenance duty, not a one-off purchase. A resuscitation notice bought a decade ago and never revisited is the failure mode the clause is aimed at.

No size, no material and no wording is specified for the resuscitation notice. If you have been quoted a mandatory size for a WA resuscitation notice, ask where it comes from.

There is a 100mm lettering rule in the same clause of the Code. It belongs to the "NO USE OF FACILITY ALLOWED AFTER DARK" and "NO LIFEGUARD ON DUTY" signs. It does not apply to the resuscitation notice and it is regularly misquoted as though it does.

Who counts as an aquatic facility

Broader than most operators expect:

• Council pools and aquatic centres
• Schools and learn to swim centres
• Hotels, motels, resorts, serviced apartments and caravan parks
• Residential developments

Regulation 5(2) excludes strata schemes with fewer than 30 residential lots. That is the line that decides it for a great many apartment buildings. A strata pool crosses into the requirement at 30 lots. If your scheme is at 28 lots and building out, the duty is ahead of you.

Penalties

A first offence carries $100 to $1,000. A third offence carries a minimum of $500. There is a continuing penalty of up to $100 per day on top.

One thing we could not settle

Whether a hotel or motel with fewer than 30 rooms falls inside the regulation 5(2) exclusion. The exclusion is written around residential lots in a strata scheme, and how it applies to accommodation rooms is not clear on the face of the regulation. If you are a small operator near that line, this is the question to put to your environmental health officer rather than to us.

Why this is worth knowing

Western Australian commercial operators carry a genuine, enforceable signage obligation, and hardly anyone in this industry markets to them on that basis. Most WA pool signage content is written for homeowners, tells them they need a CPR sign, and is wrong. Meanwhile the caravan park down the road that actually has the duty is reading the same page.

If you manage a facility in WA, the two questions worth asking today are whether your resuscitation notice is next to the first aid area, and whether the procedure on it is still current.

The signs

• CPR signs, $129. 350 x 710mm, seven colourways, full colour print on aluminium composite. Each panel carries the DRSABCD sequence with compression and breath detail set out for adults and children together and for infants separately. That is a description of what is printed on it, not a certification that it satisfies the Code for your facility. Whether a given notice meets clause 2.25.1.4 where you have hung it is a question of placement and currency, and placement is yours.
• Pool rules signs, $129. Supervision, gates, no running, no diving, keeping the area clear, no glass. Read this one carefully if you run a facility. The Code's mandatory signage clause covers three things: the resuscitation notice, "NO LIFEGUARD ON DUTY" and "NO USE OF FACILITY ALLOWED AFTER DARK". Our rules panel is none of those three, so buying it does not discharge that clause and not buying it does not breach it. It is an optional house rules sign, and the two mandatory prohibition signs, with their 100mm lettering, are a separate purchase we do not currently make.
• No diving and chemical storage signs, $29, at 225 x 300mm.
• Mounting. The panels are not pre-drilled, and you do not need to buy anything to fix them. Every sign ships with a free installation pack: 4 stainless steel self tapping screws, 4 suction caps, 4 lengths of 3M double sided tape and instructions, which covers fences, walls and posts. A spare installation kit is $17.95 if you want a second set or are fitting several signs.

For bulk orders across multiple sites, our wholesale and stockist page has the trade tiers.

What we have not been able to close

• The barrier standards are paywalled. We have not read every edition of AS 1926.1 and AS 1926.2 cover to cover, so we cannot completely rule out an internal signage clause in the standard itself. The evidence available to us points against one.
• Local government by-laws. We searched Western Australia's state instruments and the Department of Health Code. We did not search the local laws of individual councils.
• Work health and safety. Whether WHS law creates a separate first aid signage duty at a commercial pool considered as a workplace is not something we have verified.

Common questions

Do I need a CPR sign at my house in Perth?

Not under Western Australian law. The Building Regulations 2012 carry no resuscitation signage clause. The barrier is the regulated item at a home pool.

Does my apartment building's pool need one?

It depends on the size of the scheme. Regulation 5(2) excludes strata schemes with fewer than 30 residential lots from the aquatic facilities regulations. At 30 lots or more, the mandatory signage clause applies.

What size does a WA resuscitation notice have to be?

The Code specifies none. It specifies where the notice goes and that its content stays current. The 100mm lettering figure that circulates belongs to two other signs in the same clause.

Does AS 2416 apply to my facility signage?

AS 2416 is not a legal requirement anywhere in Australia. It appears in no NCC referenced documents schedule and in none of the eight jurisdictions' pool instruments. Its only appearance in this area is in the WA aquatic facilities Code at clause 2.25.2.3, explicitly under the heading "Recommended signage". Recommended is not required, and any supplier describing AS 2416 as mandatory is mistaken.

How often should the notice be replaced?

The Code sets no interval. It sets a standard: the procedure shown must be the currently recommended one. In practice that means you replace it when the resuscitation guidance changes, not on a calendar.

The other states and territories

• New South Wales. Required. Prescribed wording, and no minimum size at all. The NSW rules explained.
• Queensland. Required. Minimum 300 x 300mm, and ANZCOR Guideline 8 named. The Queensland requirements.
• South Australia. Required, but only for pools approved from a certain date.
• Victoria. Not required. Recommended by the state government.
• Tasmania. Not required, but Tasmania mandates a different sign.
• Northern Territory. Not required.
• Australian Capital Territory. Not required. Recommended by the ACT Government.

The full eight jurisdiction summary sits alongside the signs on the CPR signs page.

Read from the Western Australian regulations and the Department of Health Code of practice in August 2026. General information, not legal advice. The Code is amended periodically, councils can add local requirements, and a facility operator with a compliance question should take it to their local government environmental health officer.