Australia and New Zealand revise addressing standard

Australia and New Zealand jointly issued a revised standard today on urban and rural addressing, seeking to keep their address systems as simple as possible. A joint committee including involvement from New Zealand Post has been reviewing the 2003 standard since this spring, with the new version providing guidance for local authorities on the naming of roads and locations, and for the assigning of addresses.

Although the standard is not mandatory or retrospective in affecting existing addresses, it should nevertheless help make addresses easier to follow, assisting postal services as well as others including emergency services.

Under the newly revised standard, all publicly accessible roads must be named, with names chosen from a limited list of types that clearly suggest whether a road is accessible to vehicles and whether or not it is a through-road.

The standard also clarifies addresses for properties that are routinely accessed by water rather than roads.

And, it also clarifies addresses for complex sites and multi-level buildings, including the adoption of the system used by hotels for numbering addresses in apartment buildings, where “207” would mean an apartment on the second floor, for example.

Debbie Chin, the chief executive of Standards New Zealand, which has been leading the work on the new standard, said the revision would be of “significant” benefit to the community in Australia and New Zealand.

“Reliable and readily understandable addresses are critical for emergency services, postal services and the community at large,” she said.

“This will be crucial in assisting local authorities fulfill their responsibility for the ongoing maintenance, accuracy, and quality of addresses in a manner that is consistent across New Zealand and Australia. Parts of the standard should also be used by developers where the addressing authorities enable them to propose addresses and name roads.”