15 December 2025
Home News New workplace exposure limits legislation introduced by Safe Work Australia

Safe Work Australia has achieved ministerial approval for the change to terminology and values associated with workplace exposure control.

Please do not ignore this message if your organisation has exposure values included in any SDS

Please find attached the Safe Work Australia document “Changes to Workplace Exposure Limits”.

The changes include the following:

  • Terminology change from “Workplace Exposure Standard (WES)” to “Workplace Exposure Limit (WEL)”
  • Majority of airborne contaminants have new exposure standards, for example, Toluene
  • Current exposure standard:
    • TWA = 50ppm; STEL = 150ppm
  • New exposure limit:
    • TWA = 20ppm; STEL = removed

PLEASE NOTE: as per the document attached

  • Up until 30 November 2026, you MUST continue to comply with the current exposure standards in the “Workplace exposure standards for airborne contaminants”

THEN

  • From the 1 December 2026, you MUST comply with the exposure standards in the “Workplace exposure standards for airborne contaminants”

YES, YOU READ THAT CORRECTLY, OVERNIGHT, EVERY SDS, THAT CONTAINS AN EXPOSURE STANDARD WILL NEED TO BE RE-ISSUED WITH THE NEW TERMINOLOGY AND EXPOSURE VALUES

January 2026, I will be contacting Safe Work Australia to try and understand why they are not providing a cross over period specifically for the management of SDS, and if a cross over period could be considered as soon as possible.

For Organisations that use Lupin Systems Chemical Management Software, in the first half of 2026, Lupin Systems will investigate how we can make the overnight change – an automated task that handles the following:

  • Any SDS, with an exposure stand, will have the following tasked completed
  • updated Section 8
  • new SDS created with the following attributes:
    • issue date maintained
    • version number increased by 0.1
  • old SDS archived
  • Material in Lupin published

For Organisations that do not use Lupin Systems Chemical Management Software, please contact Kristy Titus on 0460 775 591 to look into how we can manage the overnight change.

Please contact me if you wish to discuss.

Kind Regards

Greg Deitch