Thirty-two lead submissions are now public, and the four regulators that made one split two and two on the headline cut

In July we reported that Safe Work Australia had opened a review of the lead regulations, saying they may not be adequately protecting workers, and in August we set out the blood lead numbers a duty holder must hit today and the ones the consultation paper floats. We said we would read the submissions when they appeared. The consultation hub now lists 32 published responses, and we have read them.

To read what follows you need three numbers from the paper, all in micrograms of lead per decilitre of blood (µg/dL), for workers other than women of reproductive capacity. Lead risk work, which triggers health monitoring, would be defined at 10 instead of 20. A worker would be removed from lead work at 15 instead of 30. And a new action level at 10 would require a business to review its controls. For women of reproductive capacity the paper keeps lead risk work at 5 and would lower removal from 10 to 7.5.

The four regulators

WorkSafe WA supports the cut, saying Lowering the threshold would provide greater protection for workers and better align with contemporary health evidence. It also backs health monitoring for every lead worker, noting This approach aligns with existing arrangements in Western Australia. Where it parts company with the paper is removal: it considers further evidence may be required to support a reduction to 15 µg/dL for all other workers, and on the proposed action level writes 10µg/dL for all other workers: Not supported. Consider 15µg/dL action level and 20µg/dL removal level.

SafeWork SA is the more cautious yes. Its wording on the threshold, and again on lower removal levels, is that it supports further consideration: South Australia supports further consideration of Option 2(a). It prefers that cut to monitoring everyone, because South Australia considers Option 2(a) represents a more proportionate response.

SafeWork NSW says no, and its reason is the most useful paragraph in the file for anyone who has had to apply the current rule. Under the model Regulations a business must work out whether a lead process is likely to push a worker past the threshold. NSW says businesses struggle to make that call, and that in practice most PCBUs currently notify a lead process as lead risk work irrespective of whether it is or not. Moving the number does not change the question. In its words, Lowering the prescribed blood lead level threshold, as proposed under this option, would not address these underlying issues. Its alternative is to drop the prediction altogether: Removing the requirement to determine lead risk work based on blood lead levels would address the source of the problem. NSW does support the paper’s lower removal levels, and opposes a separate action level because it may increase complexity for PCBUs.

Resources Safety and Health Queensland, the state’s mining regulator, opposes the cut on evidence grounds: RSHQ does not currently see there is sufficient evidence to decrease the blood lead level used to determine whether a lead process is lead risk work for females not of reproductive capacity and males. It would keep removal where it is, saying The current removal and return-to-work thresholds should be maintained. But it supports the action levels, at 5 and 10. Its submission also says plainly that Our feedback is provided for informative purposes only and does not represent policy of the Queensland Government.

The regulator that said no brought the data

RSHQ holds the biological monitoring results for Queensland mines, and it put some of them in the submission. It writes that Analysis of biological monitoring data held by RSHQ shows that 43% of workers classified as neither a lead-risk job nor a lead process recorded blood lead levels greater than 5 µg/dL while working at sites where lead processes and lead-risk jobs were present. And In addition, 5% of these workers recorded blood lead levels greater than 20 µg/dL with 0.5% of these reaching the level requiring removal.

RSHQ draws its own conclusion from that: RSHQ data indicates that reliance on predicted outcomes or worker classifications may not always accurately identify workers at risk of lead absorption. It uses the figures to argue for action levels and against dropping monitoring on a prediction. It also gives the scale of the whole picture: For financial year 24/25, RSHQ received approximately 20 000 blood lead results and <1% triggered removal level. Of the <1%, 19% belong to females of reproductive capacity. No reports of disease associated with exposure to lead have been received or documented by RSHQ.

The figures need reading with care. RSHQ does not say how many workers sit behind the 43 per cent, or over what period. It says the data comes from blanket health surveillance for all workers being implemented no matter a worker’s role on site, as a precautionary measure at most mine sites that have the hazard of lead. Workers move between roles, and results are reported as per a worker’s current location as it cannot be pinpointed where exact exposure occurred. A level just above 5 is also close to the population background. The 5 per cent above 20 is the harder number: blood lead at the current lead risk work threshold in workers who held no lead classification when they were tested.

Where everyone else landed

Built by us from each organisation’s own submission, read 25 October 2026. Each cell summarises the position the submission states; quoted wording is in the text. The Australian Institute of Occupational Hygienists, the small business ombudsman and the Electrical Trades Union do not answer in these terms and are described below. Anonymous respondents and individuals are not in the table.

The miners and the lead industry back the cut. The Association of Mining and Exploration Companies says AMEC is also supportive of the proposed reduction from 20μg/dL to 10μg/dL. So does the International Lead Association. Its quarrel is with removal, where it recommends revision of the proposed changes pertaining to blood lead levels triggering action under Regulations 415 and 417 for all other workers, such that the removal level for other workers is 20 µg/dL and the return to work level is 15 µg/dL. It rests that on a long-term study of workers in lead recycling, noting A total of 18 peer-reviewed papers from the SPHERL have been published since 2015.

Three bodies want the numbers left alone: the Australian Industry Group, Master Builders Australia and the Boating Industry Association. The Australian Industry Group says a significant policy problem has not been identified, and that lower removal levels would significantly challenge the viability of many businesses within Australia’s lead processing and recycling supply chains. It wants a minimum five-year transition period for anything that does change. Master Builders Australia accepts the growing scientific consensus that there is no known safe blood lead concentration and still does not support changing blood lead thresholds at this time.

The unions want more than the paper offers. The ACTU says the proposed levels are neither health-based nor sufficiently protective and should be further reduced, and that the removal level should be revised down to 10 µg/dL in order to protect against these serious health effects and to establish a return level of 7.5 µg/dL. It would accept the paper’s figures only as an interim step for lead mining, smelting and refining. On who gets monitored, it would go past the paper’s headline option: Option 2(b) should remove the predictive threshold and require health monitoring for every worker undertaking lead work. If that is not adopted, the reduction proposed under Option 2(a) should proceed as a minimum interim reform. The Electrical Trades Union goes furthest: We suggest treating any work involving lead as Lead Risk Work with automatic health monitoring.

The doctors and hygienists are worried about something else

The occupational physicians and hygienists did not mainly argue about numbers. The Australian and New Zealand Society of Occupational Medicine puts its concern first: A key concern is that several proposed options risk creating a system whereby workers become the indicator of exposure rather than exposure assessment identifying risk before harm occurs. It says the cut to 10 may be reasonable if biological criteria are retained, and says monitoring every lead worker risks creating a disproportionate and potentially unethical health surveillance burden.

The Department of Defence uses that last phrase too, in the same words, and the sentence on removal, It may be reasonable to reduce the removal level for most workers to 15 µg/dL, appears in both. We do not know who drafted what. Defence adds a reason of its own against the cut to 10: the potential that thousands of workers/soldiers would require BLL monitoring on the strength of a few results only just over the line.

The Australian Institute of Occupational Hygienists says The AIOH’s primary recommendation is that an approved Code of Practice for lead be reinstated and modernised. On who gets monitored, it lands closer to the unions than to the employers: health monitoring required for all workers undertaking a lead process unless a documented risk assessment demonstrates a worker’s blood lead level is not likely to reach the prescribed level. It also sets a floor under the action and removal triggers: any trigger cannot sensibly be set below the general population background blood lead level, which has been referenced as being in the order of 5 µg/dL.

SafeWork NSW makes the same point about codes from the regulator’s side: Lead, which has 26 provisions in the model WHS Regulations is without a supporting code. Guidance is the one thing nearly every respondent supports, including those opposing every regulatory change, and several, among them NSW, the hygienists and the physicians, ask specifically for a code.

Lower levels for women

The paper keeps separate, lower levels for women of reproductive capacity. Three respondents object from three directions. The Boating Industry Association says a removal level near the background of 5 means In practice, this means almost any measurable occupational exposure would trigger removal. An anonymous industry respondent says a lower level should not be imposed automatically on all women deemed technically capable of pregnancy. And the ACTU opposes levels that differ by sex, noting just 21% of occupations considered 'gender balanced' (JSA 2025), and proposes one set of lower levels for everyone. The ACTU would still accept different levels by sex as an interim step in lead mining, smelting and refining. The employer side and the union side both worry that sex-specific levels can push women out of lead work. They disagree on the fix: apply the lower levels to fewer women, or apply lower levels to everyone.

The small business view

The Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman says The ASBFEO is not advocating for any particular option, but its numbers explain where the cost would land. Citing Safe Work Australia’s exposure survey, it says the construction industry has the highest rate of probable occupational lead exposure, with one in five workers, or 19.9%, probably exposed. And Approximately 98% of businesses in the construction sector are small businesses. It also observes that several of the proposed thresholds are not substantially different from current requirements.

What happens next

Nothing has changed in law. The consultation closed on 24 August 2026. Safe Work Australia’s process is that the feedback informs advice to its Members and then to WHS ministers, and any amendment to Part 7.2 would have to be made separately in each jurisdiction before it bound anyone. There is no published date for a decision.

Our view, labelled as such

The headline argument is about where to set the threshold. The better argument in these submissions is about whether the threshold should be a prediction at all. NSW says businesses find the prediction hard and that many notify lead work as lead risk work regardless. Queensland’s mining regulator, testing everyone at lead sites, found 5 per cent of workers with no lead classification above 20, and concludes that classifications may not always identify the workers at risk. The ACTU wants the predictive threshold removed, and the occupational hygienists would monitor every lead process worker unless a documented assessment rules it out. Two regulators, a union body and a professional body each doubt that a predicted blood lead level is a sound gate, though they disagree on the fix.

Lowering 20 to 10 tightens a test that the consultation paper and SafeWork NSW both describe as hard to apply. A duty holder does not need to wait for ministers to act on that. If you run a lead process, consider offering voluntary blood lead tests, with consent and a doctor involved, to workers you have classed as outside it. If Queensland’s figures are any guide, that is where the surprises are, and it is the cheapest evidence you will get about whether your controls work.