‘Horrifying’: Consumer Protection WA’s warning over Halloween toys

A ‘test’ on Halloween products has revealed alarming results as just three of the 49 items looked at met the safety requirements.

Commerce minister Tony Buti and Consumer Protection Commissioner Trish Blake spoke out about the dangerous issue of button batteries on Saturday as they revealed three children had died nationally in recent years from ingesting them which had prompted changes to regulations in 2022.

However, in the lead up to Halloween Consumer Protection decided to look at a randomly selected number of products sold across six major online shopping platforms aimed at children and found the majority were not up to scratch.

Nearly 80 per cent of the items inspected failed safety standards, including unsecured battery compartments that allowed button batteries to be easily accessed, posing a serious risk to young children.

This safety failure was identified across a range of product types, including costume accessories, skeleton candlesticks, spider tea lights, pumpkin tote bags and flashing finger rings.

In one case, button batteries had dislodged from a Halloween light during transit and were discovered loose inside the packaging upon delivery.

Almost all items were missing mandatory warning labels alerting consumers to the presence of button batteries, which can cause life-threatening injuries if swallowed.

“Halloween is becoming a very important calendar event for retailers and also for people each year, so the department decided to do a bit of a test on to see regard to the safety of Halloween products, particularly button batteries,” Buti said.

“So they purchased 49 button battery items from sits online platforms, and it was very concerning what they found, only three of the 49 products met the safety requirements that have become mandatory since 2022 so the safety and information standards, only three of the 49 products purchased met those standards.”

Buti said he urged parents purchasing Halloween products to ensure that the button batteries come in a compartment that is protected from children and if not, to contact Consumer Protection WA.

Commissioner Blake said children were suffering “lifelong” effects of swallowing button batteries.

“When they swallow those button batteries in their esophagus, it burns the tissue, and it’s just incredibly dangerous and horrifying what happens to a child in a very short period of time,” she said.

“Check everything that you’ve purchased, do a simple drop test so from waist height to the ground, even if it looks secure, do that drop test to make sure that it doesn’t just pop apart too easily.

“Also don’t be fooled by things having screws, a bunch of battery compartments having small screws in them, because what we found in a lot of these products is they have the screws, but the screws don’t actually attach to anything, or they’re not long enough to actually securely hold the compartment closed.”

Blake said if the batteries come loose, wrap them in sticky tape and put them in a childproof container before containing Consumer Protection.