Improving residential asbestos safety: Opportunities for Australian local governments

Local governments play a key role in educating their communities about asbestos and residential asbestos safety. As the level of government closest to builders and DIY home renovators, local governments have responsibility to ensure as best as possible that any development activity within their local government area (LGA) is undertaken with regard to relevant federal and state legislation and local planning laws. This includes the safe handling of ACMs and extends to the provision of information and support to influence behaviour change for best practice and legal handling of ACMs by residents.

The Asbestos Safety and Eradication Agency (ASEA) commissioned UTS: The Centre for Local Government (UTS:CLG) to identify and evaluate the effectiveness of current local government asbestos safety initiatives including the use of local government asbestos management policies.

This document is a summary of the UTS:CLG report which presents the findings of research into the current role of local governments in improving residential asbestos safety and the opportunities for local governments to further address some of the challenges around asbestos safety that exist in the residential sector.