Updated 25 October 2026. The submissions this note said to watch are now published, and we have read all 32: Thirty-two lead submissions are now public, and the four regulators that made one split two and two on the headline cut. No decision has been made, and the numbers below are still the rules in force. Nothing else in this story has changed.
Corrected 19 October 2026. We said the two return figures were halved in March 2025. That is when the Commonwealth's own regulations changed; Safe Work Australia's consultation paper says the model regulations, the figures this story sets out, were lowered in 2017. We also said a worker is removed when blood lead exceeds 30, or 10; regulation 415 says at that level or above (Safe Work Australia's duties page says exceed). The paper, which the Consultation Hub would not display to us in August, now renders, and we have read it. It puts numbers on the options we could only describe, so we have added them, and our view now counts workers against those numbers; it previously assumed the thresholds would move down one notch. The headline said the consultation would lower the numbers; it sets out options, so it now says could. Changed: the headline, the standfirst, the page and social descriptions, the first table and its note, the paragraph after it, the section on the 2017 and 2025 changes, the section on what the consultation could change, our view, the sourcing notes, two new sources (the paper and the model regulations), and the summaries on the front page and the Hazards section. The figures in force are unchanged.
Updated 25 August 2026. The consultation this piece describes closed at 11.59 pm AEST on Monday 24 August 2026. We checked Safe Work Australia rather than assuming: no extension has been published, and the regulator's own news item still carries the invitation in the present tense, which is a page that has not caught up with its own date rather than a window that is still open. Changed today, and only these: the standfirst, the status chip, the page description, the social description and the structured data all said the consultation closes on 24 August and now say it closed. The numbers below are unaffected: 30 and 10 for removal, 20 and 5 for return, are the rules in force today and stay in force unless and until Safe Work Australia's process changes them. The companion piece on the consultation itself is here, and what to watch now is the submissions and any decision that follows.
The three numbers that run the whole regime
Lead is one of the few hazards where the law hands you a blood test result and a threshold, and tells you what to do at each one. There is no judgement call about whether the control is adequate. There is a figure, and either you are above it or you are not.
Safe Work Australia sets these out on its own duties page for inorganic lead. Note that two of them differ for a female of reproductive capacity, which in practice means the same workplace runs two sets of numbers.
| Trigger | Males, and females not of reproductive capacity | Females of reproductive capacity |
|---|---|---|
| Must remove from lead risk work when blood lead reaches | 30 µg/dL (1.45 µmol/L) | 10 µg/dL (0.48 µmol/L) |
| May only return to work when blood lead is below | 20 µg/dL (0.97 µmol/L) | 5 µg/dL (0.24 µmol/L) |
| Previous return figure | 40 µg/dL (1.93 µmol/L) | 10 µg/dL (0.48 µmol/L) |
Removal and return thresholds for lead risk work under the model WHS Regulations, as published by Safe Work Australia. The 10 µg/dL removal figure also applies to a worker who is pregnant or breastfeeding. The previous return figures are as Safe Work Australia's page records them. The removal wording is regulation 415's; Safe Work Australia's duties page says exceed.
The gap between the two rows is deliberate and worth noticing. A worker comes off the job at 30 and cannot come back until they are under 20, so the regime builds in a margin rather than letting someone bounce across a single line. For a female of reproductive capacity that margin runs from 10 down to 5.
The return figures were halved in 2017
The return-to-work numbers have come down once already. Safe Work Australia’s page records
the current 20 as down from 40µg/dL (1.93µmol/L)
and the current 5 as
down from 10 µg/dL (0.48 µmol/L)
. Its consultation paper dates the change
in the model regulations to 2017, when the removal levels and the level that defines lead risk
work came down too.
The jurisdictions did not all move at once. The Commonwealth’s own regulations made the change only with the Work Health and Safety Amendment (Blood Lead Level Exposure Values) Regulations 2025, registered on 24 March 2025, which took its return figures from 40 and 10 to 20 and 5 and its removal figures from 50 and 20 to 30 and 10. So a lead health monitoring procedure written before the change reached its jurisdiction may carry a return threshold twice the current one.
How often you must test
The testing interval is itself set by the last result, which means a rising blood lead level automatically pulls the next test forward. Again there are two ladders.
| Last result | Next test due |
|---|---|
| Males and females not of reproductive capacity: below 10 µg/dL | 6 months |
| 10 to below 20 µg/dL | 3 months |
| 20 µg/dL or more | 6 weeks |
| Females of reproductive capacity: below 5 µg/dL | 3 months |
| 5 to below 10 µg/dL | 6 weeks |
Biological monitoring intervals for lead risk work, as published by Safe Work Australia. Where a worker must be removed, the supervising doctor arranges a medical examination within seven days.
What the consultation could change
Safe Work Australia opened its review of Part 7.2 on 13 July, saying that
recent incidents and stakeholder feedback suggest that the current lead regulations may
not be adequately protecting workers, there may be gaps in awareness and application of
duties, and the regulations may be challenging to implement and enforce
.
Two of its three issues bear directly on the numbers above. One asks whether the
definition of lead risk work, which is what triggers mandatory health monitoring, should
change, with options including lowering the blood lead level that defines it or requiring
health monitoring for every worker doing lead work regardless of level. The other asks
whether the blood lead levels that trigger action should come down, or whether a separate
action level
should be set below the removal figure.
The consultation paper puts figures on both. Its table of possible changes would trigger
removal at 15µg/dL for all other workers
and 7.5 for a female of
reproductive capacity, and allow return below 10, with 5 unchanged for women of reproductive
capacity. Testing would tighten too: for most workers, every three months below 10 and every
six weeks from 10 to below 15. Under another option, lead risk work, the gate to health
monitoring, would be defined at 10 rather than 20 for most workers; the level for women of
reproductive capacity would stay at 5, which the paper gives as the estimated blood lead level
of Australians not exposed through work. A third would set an action level at 10, or 5, at or
above which a business would have to review its controls and reduce exposure. Each issue also
carries a guidance-only option that leaves the numbers as they are.
The paper cites incidents and stakeholder feedback at home, and the international evidence behind the numbers: European Chemicals Agency technical reports of 2020, which recommend removal at 15, European Union directive 2024/869, which sets that removal level from January 2029, and the United Kingdom’s staged proposals to reach it by October 2029. It also says that, for the most part, Australia’s current levels are consistent with, or more conservative than, other countries’.
Read against the table, the direction is not subtle. The removal and return figures have already fallen once. One of the paper’s options would halve the removal level for most workers, from 30 to 15, and another removes the gate that decides who gets monitored at all.
Our view, labelled as such
If you run a lead process, the useful thing to do is not to wait for ministers. Take your last twelve months of blood lead results and sort them. Count how many sit from 15 to below 30 for your male workers and women not of reproductive capacity, and how many from 7.5 to below 10 for women of reproductive capacity. Those are the people who are compliant today and would be removed from lead risk work under the paper’s possible figures.
That number was also the most persuasive thing a submission could carry, because Safe Work Australia said explicitly that it wants data quantifying current occupational lead exposure in Australia. Submissions closed on 24 August; the next steps are advice to Safe Work Australia Members and then to WHS ministers, where a duty holder has no seat. The count is now what tells you how much a decision would cost you.
How we sourced this
Every threshold and testing interval comes from Safe Work Australia’s own WHS duties page for inorganic lead, read on 16 August 2026. The earlier return figures are recorded on that page as a parenthetical against each one; the consultation paper dates the model change to 2017, and the instrument that made it in the Commonwealth jurisdiction is on the Federal Register of Legislation. That the removal level applies at the figure or above is the wording of regulation 415 of the model WHS Regulations. The consultation wording, the three issues and the closing time come from Safe Work Australia’s news item of 13 July 2026 and its Consultation Hub page. The possible new figures, the action level and the international comparison come from the consultation paper, read on 19 October 2026.
A jurisdictional caution that matters here. Safe Work Australia writes the model WHS laws; it does not enforce them. The Commonwealth, states and territories each implement the model laws separately, and Western Australia and Victoria are not straight adopters of the model framework. The figures above are the model position as Safe Work Australia publishes it, set in 2017; the 2025 instrument we cite brought only the Commonwealth’s own regulations into line. Check your own jurisdiction’s regulations before acting on any number in this story.
What we have not done. When we published on 16 August the Consultation Hub returned no readable text to us by fetch or in a browser, so we had not read the paper. On 19 October it displayed, with the paper linked as a Word document, and the figures from it we attribute to the paper come from that document. We have not established when each jurisdiction adopted the 2017 model change, and we do not assert that any particular state has. We have not contacted Safe Work Australia. We have not covered the separate workstream on the airborne workplace exposure standard for lead, which is a different instrument from these regulatory triggers and is easily confused with them.
Sources
Provenance. Researched, written and maintained with AI under rules the people who run this site set and enforce, and taken from the primary sources below. One quoted passage was confirmed by an automated check against the archived source. How The Duty Holder works.
- Safe Work Australia, Inorganic lead: WHS duties (read 16 August 2026): the removal thresholds of 30 and 10 µg/dL, the return thresholds of 20 and 5 µg/dL and the parentheticals recording the previous 40 and 10, the biological monitoring intervals for both cohorts, the application of the 10 µg/dL removal figure to workers who are pregnant or breastfeeding, and the seven-day medical examination requirement.
- Federal Register of Legislation, Work Health and Safety Amendment (Blood Lead Level Exposure Values) Regulations 2025 (F2025L00404, registered 24 March 2025, read 16 August 2026): the Commonwealth instrument making the blood lead level change.
- Safe Work Australia, Have your say on protecting workers from exposure to lead (news item, 13 July 2026, read 16 August 2026): that Part 7.2 of the model WHS laws is the lead regulations, the rationale quoted verbatim, and that the consultation is open until 11.59 pm AEST on Monday 24 August 2026.
- The Duty Holder, Safe Work Australia says the lead rules may not be protecting workers, and is consulting on three changes (21 July 2026): our account of the consultation’s three issues and their options, and the path from feedback to advice to WHS ministers.
- Safe Work Australia, Consultation paper: Protecting workers from exposure to lead (July 2026, Word document linked from the Consultation Hub, read 19 October 2026): the 2017 amendments to the model blood lead levels, Table 2’s possible removal, return and monitoring figures, the 10 µg/dL lead risk work option and the 5 µg/dL floor, the action level, and the European Chemicals Agency, EU and UK comparison in Table 3.
- Safe Work Australia, Model Work Health and Safety Regulations (version of 5 December 2025, read 19 October 2026): regulation 415, removal when blood lead
is, or is more than
30 or 10 µg/dL.
See an error? Request a correction and we will check it against the sources above and log the outcome.