Asbestos Free Customs Brokers™

The Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations 1956, is the key legislative instrument that prohibits the importation of asbestos to Australia. Regulation 4C. The ABF issued a fact sheet in January 2023 ‘Managing the risk of asbestos at the border’. The ABF issued Australian Customs Notice – ACN 2024/32 – ‘Assurances that imported goods do not contain asbestos’ in August 2024.

The ABF’s Stance on Asbestos Compliance

The Australian Border Force (ABF) has stated and re-affirmed that goods that arrive into Australia need to be asbestos free. The ABF has clarified that no goods containing asbestos are permitted to enter Australia. Their approach includes:

A zero-tolerance policy: No level of asbestos is acceptable in imported goods.
Inspection and verification: Goods may be detained at the port for asbestos testing at the importer’s expense.

Documentation requirements: Importers are fully responsible to provide assurances to the ABF, these assurances must be valid and from an approved source.

Importers who fail to comply with these regulations and processes should expect significant delays, disruptions and costs to the supply chain.

Products which are considered an asbestos risk at the Australian Border

• Fire resistant building materials
• Friction materials for, or in, internal combustion and electric motor vehicles
• Furnaces
• Gas masks, and parts or components for gas masks
• Gaskets or seals
• Gloves
• Heat resistant sealing or caulking compounds
• Heating equipment
• Lagging and jointing materials
• Mastics, sealants, putties or adhesives
• Mineral samples for display or therapeutic purposes
• Mixtures containing phenol formaldehyde resin or cresylic formaldehyde resin
• Nut Plug products used for drilling fluids
• Pipe spools
• Portable acetylene cylinders
• Products containing certain types of talc
• Raw materials from mining activities
• Sheet vinyl backing
• Sheeting
• Textured paints or coatings
• Tiles
• Yarn and thread, cords and string, whether or not plaited.

Invalid assurances from overseas Suppliers

Not all overseas countries or overseas suppliers adhere to Australia’s strict asbestos ban, especially in countries where using asbestos is still legal and possible. This can lead to a heightened asbestos risk in the goods that are being imported to Australia.

Overseas suppliers not giving an accurate picture to Australian Importers
If we discuss the hot topic at the moment considering Australia has both a housing crisis and a cost of living crisis; prefabricated buildings are a popular import. On so many occasions, overseas suppliers do not fully list the components that make up a prefabricated building. A prefabricated building has (1) roofing, (2) walls, (3) flooring and (4) insulation issues. These four issues are of high interest to the ABF. The overseas supplier then compounds the problem by using comments like ‘we ship to Australia all the time’, the Australian importer is under a false sense of assurance and compliance.

Asbestos testing – Delays and Financial Repercussions

If we are to use the prefabricated building scenario, if the prefabricated building arrives into Australia without a NATA asbestos approved test certificate, the goods need to stay under the ABF control, the goods need to be tested, the ABF needs to assess the test report, the importer then receives an answer and if there is no asbestos, the goods can be collected/delivered. The amount of time that the prefabricated building stays at the depot, the storage costs are accumulating daily. All costs relating to movement, testing and storage are borne by the Australian importer. A very costly exercise.

Further issues – such as damage to the goods

If we are to use the prefabricated building scenario again, the goods will need to be unpacked from the shipping container, tested, placed back inside the shipping container until the results are released, then unpacked from the container once released. The amount of times that cargo is touched – the higher the risk of damage.