A council building file from 1978 turns up during a pre-sale search on a Highton house, and the seller wants one date to settle the asbestos question for them. It will not. When was asbestos banned in Australia is a simple question with three separate answers, and none of them tell you, on their own, whether the eaves on a particular Geelong house are fibro.
Blue and brown asbestos were banned from use and import in the mid-1980s. White asbestos followed on 31 December 2003, when a total ban covered manufacture, supply, use, reuse, import, transport, storage and sale of every form. What matters for your own house is the decades either side of those dates, not the ban date by itself.
When was asbestos banned in Australia? The three dates that matter
Asbestos cement materials were first manufactured in Australia in the 1920s. They became a standard building material from the mid-1940s and stayed in common use until the late 1980s, according to Asbestos Victoria. That forty-year window, not any single ban date, is why so much of the Barwon region’s older housing stock needs a second look before anyone touches it.
The bans themselves came in two stages. Australia banned the use and import of blue asbestos, brown asbestos and asbestos-containing products in the mid-1980s. White asbestos, which was used far more widely in cement sheeting, took longer to go. Its manufacture and import was not banned until December 2003, and the full stop only arrived on 31 December 2003, when every form of asbestos was banned outright, in every use.
One manufacturer’s own record adds a useful marker in between those two dates. James Hardie, one of the country’s largest fibro cement producers, states in its own asbestos fact sheet that it stopped using asbestos in its building products in 1985 and in its pipes business in 1987. That is a company decision, not a law, and other Australian manufacturers kept using asbestos legally in various products until the mid-1980s ban and, for white asbestos, right up to the 2003 cutoff.
None of these dates tell you what is actually in the sheet you are looking at. If you are staring at a fence panel, a garage roof or a stack of old floor tiles and trying to work out whether any of this applies to your place, ring (03) 5550 4817 or send a photo through the contact form. We will put you in touch with a licensed removalist for a quote, and a test through a NATA-accredited laboratory settles the question properly before anyone touches anything.
Why the ban date is not the same as “my house is safe”
The ban date tells you when a product stopped being legally made, imported or sold. It does not tell you when your particular house was built, when an extension went up, or when a fence panel was last replaced.
Asbestos cement was standard in Australian residential building from the mid-1940s to the late 1980s. A house built or substantially extended anywhere in that window is the one that needs attention, and Asbestos Victoria treats 1990 as the practical cutoff year for “may contain asbestos”, not 2003. Nationally, the Victorian Government’s own estimate is that asbestos is still present in around one in three homes. That is a national figure, not a Geelong or Barwon one, and nobody has published a regional version of it, so treat it as context rather than a statistic about your street.
A house built after 31 December 2003 should not have had a new asbestos product installed in it, because none were legally being made or sold by then. That is the one date on this page that genuinely draws a line. Everything built or renovated before it sits somewhere on a spectrum, and only testing tells you where.
An asbestos ban timeline you can check your own house against
| Date or period | What happened | What it means for a Geelong or Barwon house |
|---|---|---|
| 1920s | Asbestos cement first manufactured in Australia | Not relevant to almost any house still standing |
| Mid-1940s to late 1980s | Widespread use in residential and commercial building materials | The high-risk decades for fencing, sheeting, eaves and roofing on your block |
| 1985 | James Hardie stopped using asbestos in its building products | A single manufacturer’s own cutoff, not a legal ban; other suppliers kept using it |
| Mid-1980s | Blue asbestos and brown asbestos banned nationally from use and import | Products made after this point should not contain blue or brown fibres |
| 1987 | James Hardie stopped using asbestos in its pipes business | Relevant mainly to old stormwater or agricultural pipe, not house cladding |
| Before 1990 | No legal date, but the period WorkSafe and Asbestos Victoria treat as the practical marker | If any part of your house dates from before 1990, treat it as unconfirmed until tested |
| 31 December 2003 | Total ban on manufacture, supply, use, reuse, import, transport, storage and sale of all forms | The only date that rules out a newly installed product completely |
Prices are indicative and GST treatment varies between providers, so ask each removalist whether their quote includes GST. Our asbestos removal cost guide has the fuller breakdown by job type.
Three Barwon houses, three different build dates
A 1960s fibro fence line along the back boundary in Norlane. The suburb was built up by the Housing Commission, largely for workers at Ford and International Harvester, squarely inside the high-use window, and a fence from that era is a reasonable candidate for asbestos cement sheeting whether or not it looks damaged. Whole-fence removal runs $1,000 to $3,500 on Melbourne-metro benchmarks, and a small run of cracked sheets still attracts the minimum job charge of $800 to $1,500, because the setup and the tip run cost much the same for four sheets as for forty.
A Super Six garage roof in Corio that has started to crack. The Housing Commission built the first of Corio’s estates in the late 1950s and about 2,500 houses over the next twenty years, again well inside the mid-1940s to late 1980s window and well before either ban date applied. A cracking, weathered Super Six roof is a different risk to one that is sound and painted, because broken material sheds fibres more easily. A garage or small roof removal runs $3,500 to $5,500 on a national cost guide, and a full house roof runs $4,000 to $15,000, or $40 to $120 per square metre.
Vinyl floor tiles found under carpet in an Ocean Grove holiday house built in 1978. Nobody has touched the original flooring since it went down, and it sat quietly under carpet for decades, well before the 2003 total ban and well within the period Asbestos Victoria flags as the one to check. Vinyl tiles and their backing are one of the materials that can turn up in a house of this age, and they are covered properly in our guide to where asbestos hides in an old Geelong house rather than here. Testing a handful of samples runs $88 to $160 each, and most houses need three to eight of them, because a fence, an eaves lining and a bathroom floor are three separate materials, not one.
Call (03) 5550 4817 with the address and a rough description of what you have found, or book a test before you touch anything through the contact form. Nothing above is a quote from us. It is the shape of the Melbourne-metro market, because no Geelong-specific pricing has been published anywhere we could verify.
What the ban dates change if you are about to renovate, extend or sell
If your house, or any part of it, was built or extended before 1990, the ban dates do not clear you of anything. They only tell you what could legally have been used at the time. The practical question before a renovation or demolition is always the same one. Has this specific material actually been tested? What year the ban came in does not answer that.
Before any wall comes down, any fence panel is lifted, or any old flooring is pulled up, our guide to preparing for a renovation or demolition in Victoria walks through what to check first. If you are weighing up doing any of the work yourself, Victoria’s rules are narrower than most DIY articles suggest, and our explainer on what you can legally remove yourself in Victoria sets out the actual area and time limits rather than the version that gets copied from other states.
A sale does not require you to have a test done, but a building and pest inspection that flags a suspect material will usually stall a settlement until someone answers the question. Getting a sample tested through a NATA-accredited laboratory before the property goes to market is the cheapest way to have an answer ready rather than a delay on the day.
Frequently Asked Questions
When was asbestos totally banned in Australia?
The total ban on all forms of asbestos, covering manufacture, supply, use, reuse, import, transport, storage and sale, came into force on 31 December 2003. Before that, blue and brown asbestos had already been banned from use and import since the mid-1980s, while white asbestos remained legal in some products until the 2003 ban.
Was asbestos banned before 2003?
Partly. Blue asbestos and brown asbestos were banned from use and import in the mid-1980s, well ahead of the full ban. White asbestos, the type most commonly used in cement sheeting, was not banned outright until manufacture and import were stopped in December 2003, with the total ban following on 31 December that year.
Does my house being built before 1990 mean it definitely has asbestos?
No, and nobody can tell by looking at a building permit or a house’s age alone. Asbestos cement was standard in Australian residential building from the mid-1940s to the late 1980s, so a pre-1990 house is a reasonable candidate to check, not a confirmed case. Only a sample analysed by a NATA-accredited laboratory can actually confirm whether a specific material contains asbestos.
Can a house built after 2003 still have asbestos in it?
Yes, if it incorporates an older structure, an extension onto an existing asbestos fence or shed, or reused materials from elsewhere. A newly built home should not contain any newly manufactured asbestos product, because none have been legally made or sold in Australia since the 2003 ban. What it might still contain is something older that was already on the block and was never removed.