"Morons" ignore fire evacuation

Maureen Clark asks:
(updated on Friday, September 05th 2014)

I wonder if you could offer comment on the following issue. I am currently chairperson of an owners body borporate committee.  We have 14 units in our complex, all wired to a central fire alarm system, which in turn is wired directly to the local fire station. The building is fully compliant having  a current fire WOF, which is regularly maintained by a reputable alarm testing service. Recently, we had a fire service call out, due to a smoke alarm being triggered within one apartment.  We were able to isolate the problem from our fire alarm console. When the fire department arrived, some residents had evacuated the building following the alarm. But the fire chief was neither amused nor impressed to find that some tenants/residents did not evacuate the building despite the alarm being clearly heard by all tenants/residents. Our in-house rules for all tenants/residents require all to follow the rules - which include evacuation on hearing the alarm sounding, irrespective of weather/time of day/night. At a recent body corporate AGM our professional body corporate secretary advised that we could not compel tenants/residents to exit the building from their place of residence......as this would violate their human rights!  Is this in fact the case, or an interpretation of the human rights law? Can we be held liable if we condone this practice, and not compel tenants to leave the building during a fire alarm? Can we legitimately require tenants to follow in-house body corporate rules - designed with their safety in mind? Can we hold or not hold fire drills legally?  With the shifting sands of tenants coming/going this would be a highly unpopular practice! Does the Human Rights Act supersede all others in this context?