WorkSafe WA has launched a single Asbestos in Western Australia portal that brings the state's scattered guidance together in one place. If you have any duty to manage asbestos in WA, whether you run a business, own a building, work a trade or rent a home, it's now the obvious place to start. The portal covers the risks, the law, and how to handle or remove the material safely.
The launch matters because asbestos is still everywhere in WA. It went into more than 3,000 building products before it was banned, and almost any structure built before the 1990s can still contain it: cement sheeting, roofing, eaves, vinyl flooring, pipe lagging, fencing, and plenty of less obvious places. Homes, commercial premises and public buildings are all in scope. That's why WorkSafe WA keeps the message simple. Stay asbestos-aware, at home and at work.
What the portal brings together
WA's asbestos information used to be spread across several agencies and web pages, so duty holders had to assemble their obligations from bits and pieces. The portal consolidates all of it, organised around the questions people actually ask. Some pages help you find and identify asbestos, including testing through NATA-accredited labs, and show what the common materials look like. Others are grouped by setting: asbestos in the home, in the workplace, and in public areas. There are dedicated sections on the health risks, on the law, on safe removal and the licensing rules for removalists, and on the specific concerns of trades, contractors and recyclers. Rounding it out are pages on naturally occurring asbestos in mining, soil contamination, disaster clean-up, and resources for local government.
That sounds mundane, but it's a real improvement. Most asbestos incidents start with someone who isn't sure what they're looking at, or who's responsible for it. One trustworthy place to check makes it less likely that a homeowner drills into an asbestos-cement wall, or a contractor rips out lagging, just because the right advice was buried.
Who it's for, and where to start
The portal's real strength is that it talks to different people differently, rather than treating asbestos as one technical topic. Where you start depends on your role.
Employers and workers
Run a business in WA? Start with the workplace pages. They cover the core duties: finding asbestos, keeping a register and a management plan, controlling exposure, and using licensed removalists for the riskier jobs. Workers will find plain advice on their right to a safe site and what to do if they think they've disturbed something.
Homeowners and tenants
These pages are written for people who aren't experts. They explain where asbestos tends to hide in older houses, why pulling out certain materials yourself is dangerous (and sometimes illegal without a licence), and how to approach renovations and repairs. Tenants get advice on reporting damaged material to a landlord or agent instead of touching it.
Trades, contractors and recyclers
Tradespeople are some of the most exposed people of all, simply because their work cuts into the building itself. The portal sets out what's expected of builders, electricians, plumbers and demolition crews, and adds separate guidance for recyclers handling waste that might be contaminated.
Local government and mining
Councils get resources for managing asbestos in public assets and handling community reports. The mining pages deal with naturally occurring asbestos, a real WA issue given the state's geology and the risk of disturbing asbestiform minerals during earthworks.
The legal backdrop in WA
All of this sits on top of WA's work health and safety laws. The Work Health and Safety Act 2020 started on 31 March 2022, bringing the state into line with the national model WHS laws and replacing the old occupational safety and health regime. WorkSafe WA is the regulator, with the Department of Health and the Department of Water and Environmental Regulation covering the health and environmental side.
For businesses, the duties will look familiar to anyone who's managed asbestos elsewhere in Australia:
- Find any asbestos or asbestos-containing material at the workplace, especially in buildings put up before 31 December 2003
- Record it in an asbestos register and keep that register up to date
- Write and maintain an asbestos management plan
- Use licensed assessors and removalists for friable and higher-risk non-friable work
- Train and supervise workers in proportion to the risk
The portal doesn't change any of this. It just makes the duties easier to find and act on, which for a time-poor manager is often the difference between staying compliant and tripping into a breach without realising.
Using it if you manage property or a workforce
If you carry WHS responsibilities in WA, treat the launch as a nudge to look at your own systems, not just a headline to skim past. A few things worth doing:
1. Check your register against the guidance
Use the identification pages to sanity-check that your register reflects what's likely to be in buildings of your age and type. Registers that haven't been looked at in years routinely miss roof voids, sub-floors and plant rooms.
2. Make sure your management plan is current and findable
A plan only helps if people can actually get to it. Check that yours accounts for any building work done since the last update, and that it says who's responsible for each control.
3. Send your team and contractors to the right pages
It's a ready-made induction tool. Pointing trades and new starters at the relevant pages is a cheap way to lift awareness before anyone goes near suspect material.
4. Check the licences of whoever you hire
Before you book a survey, clearance or removal, confirm the provider holds the right licence for the job. The portal spells out which classes of work need licensed removalists and assessors.
Better signposting, not a silver bullet
None of this takes a single sheet of asbestos cement out of a WA building. But confusing, scattered guidance is a hazard in its own right: it breeds wrong guesses, delay and avoidable exposure. Putting the risks, the rules and the removal advice in one place won't fix the problem on its own, but it makes it a lot easier for the people responsible to get it right.
If you're in WA and need a licensed asbestos surveyor, assessor or removalist to help meet these obligations, you'll find providers covering the state in our directory. It's a sensible next step once the portal has helped you work out what your situation actually needs.