Page 3942 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 25 November 2014
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10 square metres of non-friable asbestos or asbestos contaminated dust without an asbestos removal licence. These changes will result in the territory having the strongest asbestos safety laws in the country.
On a regulatory level, one of the key changes arising from this bill is the transfer of the asbestos removalist and assessor licensing, compliance and enforcement functions from the Environment and Planning Directorate to the Justice and Community Safety Directorate. As a result most of the amendments relating to the Construction Occupations (Licensing) Act and the Building Act only operate to remove references to or clarify definitions of asbestos removalists and assessors. This change aligns the territory with harmonised jurisdictions, all of which oversee asbestos licensing through their work health and safety laws. It will also improve the mutual recognition of asbestos licences between harmonised jurisdictions.
Another key change arising from the bill is the transfer of asbestos work safety laws from dangerous substances legislation into work health and safety legislation. This change will provide modernised and harmonised work safety requirements for all workers.
The work health and safety laws provide greater direction in terms of what duties must be met when a worker is working on a residential site where asbestos is present. Importantly, however, dangerous substances legislation will continue to regulate asbestos in circumstances where work health and safety legislation does not apply. The most common example of this is a home owner removing asbestos from their house in the course of do-it-yourself home renovations.
As a result of the government’s reforms, from 1 January 2015 a person must not remove asbestos or asbestos-containing material from any premises unless the person is an appropriately licensed asbestos removalist. The only exception to this will be if the removal is non-friable asbestos or asbestos-containing dust incidental to minor or routine maintenance work or other minor work at the premises. To ensure clarity on this change, guidance for both workers and home owners will be developed and published.
To date asbestos safety has focused on the employer-employee relationship—requiring employers to ensure the safety of their workers. These new reforms bring a new focus on community safety and stronger protections for residents, home renovators, neighbours and others in the Canberra community. This is a unique, forward-thinking policy not mirrored by any other state or territory.
What this means for home owners is that, if you are planning DIY renovations on your home, and it was built before 1 January 2004, you should engage a licensed asbestos assessor to determine whether asbestos is present before you start work. If asbestos is present, you should engage a licensed asbestos removalist to remove it.
Community awareness around asbestos will continue to be vital to ensuring the effectiveness of these reforms and the government will continue to promote awareness and education—through our web presence and other media—combined with high industry standards and appropriate enforcement activities undertaken by the work safety regulator.
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