Australia
Every country sets limits for how much of a dust, fume or chemical a worker may breathe in over a working day. On 1 December 2026, Australia replaces its old limits with new ones. All the state and federal ministers responsible for work safety agreed to switch on the same day, so the whole country changes at once.
It’s the first full update since 2003. They’ve changed the name, too. The old “Workplace Exposure Standards” are now “Workplace Exposure Limits”. That’s on purpose: these are limits that must not be exceeded, not suggestions.
What changes
- Many limits change. Some get stricter, some get looser. Some substances are merged, split, renamed, added or removed.
- Diesel exhaust gets a new, strict limit (0.01 mg/m³). That matters in mines, tunnels and warehouses with diesel forklifts.
- Some cancer-causing chemicals no longer get a number at all. For these, there’s no level that counts as “safe”. Employers have to get rid of them, or cut exposure as far as they reasonably can.
- New warnings in the list. Chemicals that can cause allergies are now marked separately for the skin and for the lungs. And there’s a new warning for chemicals that can damage hearing.
- Nine chemicals keep their old limits for now, including silica dust, formaldehyde and benzene. A stricter benzene limit follows on 1 June 2027.
Why this is a PPE story
You choose a mask by comparing two numbers: how much of something is in the air, and the limit. The bigger the gap, the stronger the mask you need. So if the limit goes down, the mask that was enough last month might not be enough in December, even though nothing at the workplace has changed.
The new hearing warning is interesting too. Some chemicals can damage hearing on their own, or make noise damage worse. So where workers are exposed to both, it’s worth looking at hearing protection even if the noise on its own seems fine.
Sources: Safe Work Australia: Workplace exposure limits · Safe Work Australia: changes between WES and WEL · Safe Work Australia homepage (benzene)
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