When was asbestos banned in Australia?
When was asbestos banned in Australia? The total ban took effect on 31 December 2003. From that date it became illegal in NSW and across Australia to use or re-use, manufacture, import, transport, store or sell asbestos. The ban covered every form of asbestos and every product made with it, so no new asbestos material has legally gone into an Australian home since.
That date is the one most people remember, but it is not the whole story. Asbestos was being phased out for years before the ban, and the material installed before then did not go anywhere when the law changed. If you own an older Sydney home, the more useful question is not when asbestos was banned but when your house was built or last renovated.
The ban itself is about what can be made, imported and sold. The rules on who can remove asbestos, how much a homeowner can handle and how it has to be disposed of sit in separate laws, which we cover in our guide to NSW asbestos laws for homeowners.
Why did Australia ban asbestos?
Asbestos was banned because there is no known safe level of exposure. It is a group of naturally occurring fibrous minerals, and when its fibres are released into the air and breathed in, they can become trapped in the lungs and cause life-threatening diseases including lung cancer, mesothelioma and asbestosis. These diseases develop slowly, with symptoms often not appearing until 20 to 30 years after exposure. The national Asbestos Safety and Eradication Agency estimates that around 4,000 Australians die from asbestos-related diseases every year.
Australia was hit harder than most countries because it used so much of it. Asbestos NSW says Australia had one of the highest rates of asbestos use per person in the world until the 1980s. The country imported 1.5 million tonnes of asbestos between 1930 and 1983, and asbestos was mined here until 1984.
The appeal made sense at the time. Asbestos is heat resistant, strong and cheap, and asbestos cement sheeting was marketed to homeowners as affordable, easy to use and needing little or no maintenance. Manufacturers aimed it squarely at the do-it-yourself builder, and it went into the roofs, walls, eaves, fences and pipes of millions of Australian homes.
Was asbestos phased out before 2003?
Yes. The 2003 ban was the last step, not the first. Asbestos NSW says Australia phased out the use of asbestos from the 1980s, and the national Asbestos Product Guide records how that happened:
- The Wittenoom mine, which had supplied thousands of tons of blue asbestos (crocidolite) to Australian manufacturers, closed in November 1966.
- James Hardie, the only Australian maker of asbestos cement products from 1977, stopped using asbestos in its building products in the mid-1980s.
- Asbestos in brake linings and gasket sheeting carried on until it was phased out ahead of the national ban.
- The total ban on the manufacture, import and use of all forms of asbestos came into effect on 31 December 2003.
There is a catch in that timeline. When manufacturing of asbestos building products stopped in the mid-1980s, stock already supplied to the market kept being sold and installed. That is why the national product guide uses “prior to 1990” as its working cut-off for asbestos building products, and why the NSW advice for homeowners is built around 1990 rather than 2003.
Does the 2003 ban mean my home is asbestos free?
No. The ban stopped new asbestos from being installed. It did nothing about the material that was already in place. In 2021 the Asbestos Safety and Eradication Agency estimated that between 6.1 and 7.5 million tonnes of asbestos remained in Australia’s built environment, and that around 95% of it was asbestos cement.
Asbestos NSW gives homeowners a simple rule of thumb based on age. If your home was built or renovated before 1990, it probably contains asbestos. If it was renovated between 1990 and 2004, it may contain asbestos. A home built after the ban should not have had any new asbestos installed, because by then it was illegal to use.
Age is also why old asbestos is becoming more of a concern, not less. The national agency says asbestos products in Australian buildings are now 30 to 100 years old and have reached or are nearing the end of their lifespan. Asbestos cement that was sold as maintenance free weakens with long exposure to the weather, and hail, storms and fire can damage it further, which raises the chance of fibres being released. We look at what this means for older suburbs in our article on how many Sydney homes still contain asbestos.
Where asbestos is still found in older NSW homes
Asbestos NSW lists these as the places it is most often found in older homes:
- roofing
- ceilings and internal walls
- eaves
- fencing
- flue and water pipes
- fireplaces
- behind tiles
- flooring underlay
Our own project work follows the same pattern. Recent Rosemont jobs have included asbestos eaves in Elderslie, bathroom walls in Kings Park, a garage ceiling in Beecroft, a steep roof in Blackheath and fibro fences.
Knowing the likely places is a start, but you cannot tell whether any of these materials contains asbestos just by looking at it. Modern fibre cement board, which contains no asbestos, looks almost identical to the old sheeting once it is installed and painted, and many people call both of them “fibro”. The age of the material is a clue. Only a laboratory test is proof.
What the ban means if you are buying an older property
If you are buying a home built before 1990, Asbestos NSW says it is likely to contain asbestos, and if it was renovated between 1990 and 2004 it may. A standard pre-purchase building report does not always cover asbestos, so it is worth arranging a separate asbestos inspection before you complete the purchase. The NSW guidance is that the inspection should take in the underfloor and roof spaces as well as the rooms, and that samples should be taken so the report shows where any asbestos is and what condition it is in. That gives you a basis for planning removal, or for managing what stays, before the keys are handed over.
A slightly later line applies to workplaces. In NSW, a commercial building built before 2004 must have an asbestos register that records any suspected or assumed asbestos, where it is in the building and what condition it is in. Anyone demolishing or refurbishing that building, or doing any work that could disturb asbestos, has to get a copy of the register before they start. If the building has no register, the options are to assume asbestos is present and work accordingly, or to have the materials inspected before work begins. If you are buying or leasing a shop, office or factory rather than a home, ask to see the register first.
What to do if your home was built before 1990
If the asbestos materials in your home are in good condition and you are not planning any work, you may not need to do anything. Asbestos NSW says materials containing asbestos are low risk when they are in good condition and unlikely to be damaged, which means no holes and no broken, peeling or flaking areas. The national agency adds that simply living in a building that contains asbestos is not necessarily dangerous, provided the asbestos is sealed, undamaged and left alone.
The risk starts when the material is disturbed. Before you renovate, repair or even drill into an older wall, find out what you are dealing with. The NSW advice is to avoid sanding, scrubbing, water-blasting, cutting or drilling anything you suspect is asbestos, and to follow a simple rule: if you think it might be asbestos, treat it like it is.
Asbestos testing is how you settle the question. Rosemont’s licensed team collects samples from your property and sends them to a NATA accredited laboratory, and the report sets out the fibre type found and the material it came from. The report is yours to use however you need, whether or not you go ahead with us for any work that follows.
If the test confirms asbestos and it needs to come out, we carry out licensed asbestos removal under SafeWork NSW licence AD213403, with the waste disposed of at a licensed facility.
If your home was built or renovated before 1990 and you are planning work on it, call us on 0475 000 021 or request a free quote. We respond to all enquiries within 24 hours.