this year’s Ekka kicking off tomorrow, a team of officers from the Office of Fair Trading has been busy
sifting through and checking more than 300 different show bags before the gates open. Their aim is to
reduce the chance of unsafe toys and novelties ending up in the hands of children.
The show bag industry is very cooperative in making sure show bag items are safe. However,
even with the best of intentions problems can occur. During the recent search a handful of toys were
taken away for further lead testing and some other stuffed toys were checked to ensure that they had
the required safety certificates. The Office of Fair Trading has removed three toys from Ekka show bags
this year after testing found that they contained excessive amounts of lead. The three toys identified
were a transformer figurine, a toy hummer car and an action space shuttle. Product safety officers with
the Office of Fair Trading have instructed the supplier of the toys to remove them from sale in the show
bags and the toys will not be sold at the Ekka.
Safety requirements for lead in toys were introduced in Queensland in November 2007 following
worldwide recalls of popular toys due to excessive lead levels. Although the Office of Fair Trading has
minimised the risk to children, I encourage parents to buy only show bags that are suitable for the age of
their child and to report any safety problems with show bags immediately to the product safety unit of
the Office of Fair Trading.
There was one other bag we were notified about that is still being investigated, and that is the
Borg is Back bag. This non-biodegradable brown paper bag apparently includes all-day suckers and
snakes, a John-Paul Langbroek voodoo doll complete with a pin in the back, a dining voucher for Fetta’s
Greek Restaurant in Cairns and a book titled 
