What has NSW achieved and learnt

Asbestos management has been a part of the NSW built environment since the early 20th century.

An estimated 6.4 million tonnes of asbestos is still in the built environment around Australia.

Land managers remove thousands of tonnes of asbestos every year from buildings and land. We need to keep doing this, but it can’t be our only focus. The wholesale removal of asbestos from the built environment is cost prohibitive to governments, industy and homeowners.

We need to normalise living safely around asbestos. We need systems to drive safe behaviours.

Our choices as government agencies have been driven by assessing risk, aided by better data and research. NSW has benefited from research undertaken by the Commonwealth Asbestos Safety and Eradication Agency (ASEA), all of which is available online.

We have also learnt that we can make change through many smaller wins. In 2010, the NSW Ombudsman issued a report recommending a change in NSW government’s handling of asbestos. Since that time NSW has:

• Reached out to the entire NSW community to raise awareness about asbestos through repeated campaigns.
• Published a single point for asbestos information in NSW – asbestos.nsw.gov.au.
• Mapped areas of naturally occurring asbestos across NSW.
• Removed 50,451 tonnes of asbestos damaged by the 2019-20 bushfires, and removed 1,757 tonnes of flood-affected asbestos waste under the levy exemption at NSW facilities from March 2021 to present.
• Built good practice and consistency in asbestos management across local councils with the Model Asbestos Policy, now adopted by over 90% of councils
• Under the loose fill asbestos (‘Mr Fluffy’ asbestos insulation) program-inspected 71,213 homes and demolished or remediated 152 properties in NSW affected by loose-fill asbestos insulation since 2015.
• Funded rehabilitation of legacy asbestos sites such as Woodsreef Mine.
• Funded removal and remediation of some Discrete Aboriginal communities across NSW.
• Supported 5,261 clients who are workers with an occupational dust disease and their dependents. About 83% of cases compensated are due to an asbestos related dust disease.
• Introduced harsher penalties for the unlawful management of asbestos waste by amendments to the Protection of Environment Operations Act 1997.
• Changed the Work Health and Safety Regulation 2017 to allow SafeWork NSW to issue on-the-spot fines to workers for asbestos-related offences.

The Ombudsman’s second Report in 2017 was more positive about the progress made in NSW and put forward additional recommendations.

Through all of this, we have learnt we can’t solve the problems asbestos causes unless we work together. None of our successes would have been possible without the willingness of government agencies and peak bodies to come together to solve problems jointly.

Going forward we know that we have to make some strategic decisions about where to act and what to prioritise. A clear focus is our only chance of continuing success.