Pool safety signs for strata and apartment complexes

New South Wales: named in the Act

The Swimming Pools Act 1992 applies to premises with a residential building, and section 3(1A) expressly extends it to strata common property. A pool on the common property of a strata scheme in New South Wales is covered, and the sign requirement in clause 10 of the Swimming Pools Regulation 2018 applies to it. Spa pools are included.

What clause 10(1) asks for is content, not dimensions: a resuscitation flow chart based on ANZCOR Guideline 8 as published in January 2016, a statement that formal instruction in resuscitation is essential, the publisher's name and the date of publication, and three lines about supervision, keeping the gate closed and keeping the fence clear. Clause 11 adds one test, that the sign is legible from at least 3 metres and stays that way.

New South Wales prescribes no minimum size for the sign. The 300mm by 300mm figure repeated across this industry is Queensland's and South Australia's.

Western Australia: the line falls at 30 lots

Western Australia has the only signage duty in the country that sits in health law rather than building law, and it is the one most operators have never heard of. The Health (Aquatic Facilities) Regulations 2007, regulation 19(2), adopt the Department of Health's Code of practice for aquatic facilities. Clause 2.25.1.4 of that Code, under the heading "Mandatory signage", requires one or more resuscitation notices installed in a prominent position, easily seen by pool users and adjacent to the first aid area, kept current with the Resuscitation Council of Australia's recommended procedure.

Regulation 5(2) excludes strata schemes with fewer than 30 residential lots. That is the threshold. A scheme of 29 lots sits outside the regulations. A scheme of 30 crosses into them, and the resuscitation notice becomes mandatory rather than sensible.

Penalties under these regulations run from $100 to $1,000 for a first offence, with a minimum of $500 for a third, and a continuing offence can add up to $100 a day.

Two things about this duty that a strata manager should know before acting on it. The Code specifies placement and currency only. It sets no size, no material and no wording for the resuscitation notice. The "100mm lettering" figure that appears in the same clause belongs to two other signs, "NO LIFEGUARD ON DUTY" and "NO USE OF FACILITY ALLOWED AFTER DARK", which the Code also makes mandatory at aquatic facilities. We do not make those two signs. If your scheme is caught by these regulations, you need them from a supplier who does, and we would rather tell you that than let you think a resuscitation notice closes the question.

Our Western Australia page sets out the full split between home pools and facilities.

Queensland: the building class decides it, and one case falls outside

Queensland's duty is in section 13 of the Building Regulation 2021 and applies to a regulated pool, which includes pools on residential land and at class 1, 2, 3 and 4 buildings. A pool serving a class 2 apartment building is a regulated pool, and the sign must be at least 300mm by 300mm, durable and weatherproof, carrying a prominent emergency statement and first aid information including CPR.

There is one case that falls outside, and it is worth checking before you buy. Class 3 common property operating under an approved pool safety management plan sits outside the definition of a regulated pool, and therefore outside the section 13 sign duty. If your scheme runs a pool safety management plan, confirm which side of that line you are on rather than assuming the duty applies.

South Australia: the duty can arrive with a settlement

South Australia works on approval dates. The requirement comes through the South Australian variation to the National Construction Code, in Volume One for apartments, hotels and motels, and the South Australian Government states it began on 1 May 2016. Where it applies, the sign must be at least 300mm by 300mm in durable, weatherproof material.

For a pool approved before 1 July 1993, Ministerial Building Standard MBS 004 applies instead, and it attaches the obligation at a prescribed event rather than continuously. Transfer of a strata unit or a community lot is a prescribed event. In a scheme with normal turnover, that means the obligation can arrive at a settlement rather than on a fixed date, which is not how most managers expect a building rule to behave.

Where we found no requirement

We found no CPR signage duty for a shared residential pool in Victoria, Tasmania, the Northern Territory or the Australian Capital Territory.

That finding is not equally strong in all four, and the difference matters here more than on a home pool page. Western Australia's duty proves that a signage requirement for a shared or commercial pool can live in health law while the building regulations look completely empty. In Victoria and Tasmania we searched the public health instruments as well as the building ones and found nothing. For the ACT and the Northern Territory we searched building law and did not search health law. We are not going to present those two as settled when the one instrument class that produced a duty elsewhere has not been read.

What we have not been able to close

• Council by-laws were not searched. State and territory instruments were read in full. More than five hundred local councils were not, and a local requirement could exist that this page does not know about.
• ACT and Northern Territory health law was not searched, as above.
• AS 1926.1 and AS 1926.2 are paywalled, so we could not read them to confirm they contain no signage clause of their own.
• There is no such thing as a "body corporate regulation" that governs pool signage. Earlier copy on this page said our signs complied with one. No instrument of that name exists, and we have removed the claim rather than leave it standing.

This is general information about what the instruments say, not legal advice, compiled on 4 August 2026. Your scheme's by-laws are a separate matter from the law and we have no visibility of them.

The signs, and what they suit in a shared building

The CPR sign is the one the New South Wales, Queensland, South Australian and Western Australian duties are about. It measures 350mm by 710mm, comfortably over the 300mm minimum Queensland and South Australia set, printed on aluminium composite panel. Seven colours, so a scheme with a considered entry can pick one that does not fight the building: Charcoal Black and Slate Grey read as architectural rather than as a warning notice.

The Pool Rules sign carries six rules: supervision, securing the gate, no running or rough play, no diving, keeping the pool area clear, and no glassware. Two of those are the ones shared pools actually have trouble with. No glassware and no running or rough play are the rules a committee ends up writing letters about, and a permanent sign is easier to point at than a circular. No jurisdiction we read requires a rules sign at a strata pool, so this is a management decision rather than a compliance one.

If your pool has a shallow end, the standalone No Diving sign puts that one rule at the water's edge where it is read.

Panels are not pre-drilled. A free installation pack ships with every sign; the separate installation kit is a spare rather than a required extra. The installation instructions cover rendered walls, timber and fencing.

Buying for more than one building

Most strata orders are not one sign. Pool Signs Australia publishes volume pricing and a wholesale application on the stockist and wholesale page, and the fastest route for a multi-building order is to ask for a quote or call 1300 005 232 with the number of pools and the states they are in. We would rather size the order against the rules that actually apply in each state than sell you the same sign for every building.

Common questions

Our scheme has 24 lots and we are in Perth. Do we need a resuscitation notice?

Regulation 5(2) of the Health (Aquatic Facilities) Regulations 2007 excludes strata schemes with fewer than 30 residential lots, so a 24 lot scheme sits outside those regulations. That is what the regulation says. It does not mean nothing else applies to you, and we have not read your local council's by-laws.

Does one sign cover a building with two pools?

The Western Australian Code asks for the notice to be prominent, easily seen by pool users and adjacent to the first aid area, which is a per-location test rather than a per-building one. Queensland requires the sign attached to the barrier or displayed near the pool. Both read naturally as one sign per pool area.

Do we need to replace a sign that is still readable?

In New South Wales, a sign erected on or before 31 August 2019 that met the repealed 2008 Regulation still complies unless the pool is substantially altered or rebuilt. In Western Australia the Code asks that resuscitation notices are kept up to date with the Resuscitation Council of Australia's current recommended procedure, which is a currency test rather than an age one.

Who is responsible, the owners corporation or the lot owner?

That is a question about your scheme's structure and we cannot answer it from the signage instruments. What we can tell you is that in New South Wales the Act reaches common property directly, so the pool being shared does not put it outside the scheme of the Act.