The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment denies it is stalling on Roman blind safety concerns after several children were strangled by the cords in the past decade.
In a damning report in March 2021, Coroner Mary-Anne Borrowdale called for action to prevent more "avoidable deaths". Borrowdale slammed MBIE's approach thus far, saying they needed to make it a priority to get the Minister of Consumer Affairs David Clark to declare "prescriptive mandatory regulations".
Borrowdale's recommendations were part of her report on the death of a 19 month old baby who died from accidental asphyxiation from a Roman blind cord.
Speaking with AM on Wednesday, MBIE national manager of consumer services Simon Gallagher said the agency is working on several measures to address the issue.
When questioned why action hadn't been taken given the Coroner's recommendations were released 16 months ago, Gallagher said MBIE is planning to brief the Minister on the best options "imminently".
"I'd like to start by offering my condolences for the families impacted by this tragic accident. It is a priority for us to be working on," he told AM's Melissa Chan-Green.
"We have a commission, some independent economic research which has given us more information, some facts, data and statistics about the issue.
"And the Coroner's report actually had three main recommendations. The first was regulation, which we are actively looking into and we are preparing to brief the Minister imminently on the best options there.
"Secondly, the Coroner said parental education is needed, and thirdly, that remediation activity should actually occur."
Gallagher said the agency is also working with Plunket and Safe kids to provide education to parents - in line with the Coroner's recommendations - as well as with businesses and retailers.
"We've engaged with Plunket and Safe Kids who are already providing some of this information and putting more messages on there through the channels...
"We've also worked with industry. So for instance, we've been working with The Warehouse and Bunnings to source cleats into the country but we understand there's a supply chain issue with them not arriving until September. Other major retailers are on board with promoting the safety messages around corded blinds, including online marketplaces such as TradeMe."
Chan-Green then questioned the agency's contact with the Minister asking whether they have been providing him with enough information over the past 16 months.
"I filed an Official Information Act request to ask what kind of information. So I asked for any communication to the Minister, including letters, emails, messages to the Minister regarding the Coroner's findings and generally relating to trading standards," she said.
"I was expecting quite a lot of documents. I did get some documents. What I got back was [four] pages. Now the blacked-out bits are bits that are relating to topics that are irrelevant… It's four pages that are essentially completely blacked out. So in 16 months, this is the information you are telling me that has been provided to the minister?" She asked.
"Yep," Gallagher replied. "And we have been working actively on the three areas as identified by the coroner.
"As I said, the information is imminently going to be with the Minister. And we've also focussed on the education and the remediation as being important levers to actually just address the issue."
But Gallagher conceded despite education efforts many parents still aren't aware of the dangers the blinds present.
"We've done some targeted market research and we've found that while 75 percent of people did know that they were potentially an issue, most weren't aware of the severity and the consequences and further, a lot thought it was too costly or complicated to fix," he revealed.
Gallagher said ultimately the safest option is not to install Roman blinds at all.
"That would be our main recommendation, not to install them at all," he said.
Gallagher said all MBIE's information on the issue should be with the Minister this week.
He said MBIE hasn't been made aware of any further deaths from blinds since the Coroner's report.
