The hierarchy of control does not directly apply to welding, and Safe Work Australia wants to fix that

We have covered the number twice: what the exposure limit for welding fume actually is, and what industry said when it was cut. This is the other half, and the more structural one. It is not about how much fume is too much. It is about which rules apply to welding at all.

The gap, in the paper’s own words

Part 3.1 of the model WHS Regulations carries regulation 36, the hierarchy of control measures: eliminate the risk if you reasonably can, and if you cannot, work down through substitution, isolation and engineering controls before you arrive at administrative controls and personal protective equipment. It is the spine of Australian WHS practice.

It also does not bind you unless something else in the Regulations says it does. The consultation paper states the position plainly: The model WHS Regulations do not directly prescribe welding as an activity where PCBUs must manage health and safety risks in accordance with Part 3.1. Welding gets there indirectly, because welding generates hazardous chemicals in fume and gas and the hazardous chemicals provisions in Part 7.1 do carry that duty.

So the obligation exists, by a route. The paper’s concern is what that route does to behaviour. Stakeholders told it that the Code is viewed as guidance only and that there is extensive industry non-compliance with WHS obligations set out in codes of practice, and that the hierarchy is not being worked through in order, with respiratory protective equipment (RPE), especially powered air-purifying respirators (PAPR) are often relied on, instead of implementing higher order controls.

That is the hierarchy upside down. A PAPR is the last line, not the first, and reaching for it first is what happens when the rule that says so is somewhere you have to go looking for it.

Six proposed regulations, in three tiers

The paper is careful to say the proposals are not final and no decision has been made. It is also careful about their ambition: The proposed regulations largely clarify or restate existing expectations in the Code and the model WHS Regulations and elevate some guidance from the Code into the WHS regulations.

Source: Safe Work Australia, Regulation of Welding Processes consultation paper, May 2026, section 4.1.

Four of the six change nothing about what a competent duty-holder should already be doing. What they change is where it is written. On the first one the paper says the regulation would clarify the legal obligation and not rely on the codes of practice to navigate relevant regulations across the chapters of the Regulations to work out that Part 3.1 applies. That sentence is worth reading twice, because it is a regulator saying that finding your own obligation currently requires a navigation exercise.

Notably, the training proposal does not come with a mandated course. The paper says no specific accredited training has been identified or proposed as mandatory, and that what is appropriate would be left to the PCBU to determine for that workplace. The same deliberate looseness runs through the Part 3.1 proposal, which would not prescribe specific controls because of the variety of processes and materials involved.

The welding rod problem

One specific in the paper deserves its own line, because it is the kind of gap that only shows up when somebody reads the definitions against each other. Hazard communication rests on labelling and safety data sheets, and those attach to hazardous chemicals. But welding rods, which are not of themselves a hazardous chemical, and therefore will not require labelling as a hazardous chemical or require a Safety Data Sheet.

A consumable that becomes part of a hazardous mixture the moment it is used does not carry the document that would tell you what it will become. The paper also records that the combination of chemical, noise, electrical and radiation hazards produces inconsistent understanding of obligations, leading to unintended exposures to hazards, including those that cause cancer.

Where this sits against the code-of-practice question

Two of the six proposals move recommendations out of a code of practice and into regulations, and the stated reason is that codes are treated as advice. That is the same problem New South Wales attacked from the other end. As we reported in August, section 26A of the NSW WHS Act now makes an approved code the minimum standard a PCBU is expected to meet, rather than evidence a court may weigh.

So there are two live answers to the same complaint. NSW has raised the status of every code at once. Safe Work Australia is proposing to promote two specific recommendations for one activity into the regulations nationally. A duty-holder operating in NSW is already living under the first answer, whatever happens to the second.

What a welder or a welding employer should take from this

Nothing has changed. The consultation opened on 29 May 2026 and closed on 12 July 2026, feedback goes to Safe Work Australia Members, and any change to the model WHS Regulations would then have to be implemented separately in each jurisdiction.

The useful part is the diagnosis rather than the proposal. If the regulator’s own assessment is that welding reaches the hierarchy of control indirectly and that PPE is being reached for first as a result, then the question worth asking in your own workplace is the one the first proposed regulation would force: before the respirator, what was eliminated, substituted, isolated or engineered out. That obligation is not new and does not depend on this consultation. It is simply easier to overlook when you have to navigate three chapters of the Regulations to find it.