- Register
- Workplace asbestos
- Column A
- Who keeps it
- Checked
- 8 Oct 2026
The asbestos register, all six columns
Column A · Who keeps it
Who must keep an asbestos register
The person with management or control of a workplace must make sure an asbestos register is prepared and kept there. Under the model regulations the exception is narrow: a building constructed after 31 December 2003 where no asbestos has been identified and none is likely to be present.
General information, not legal or safety advice. Safe Work Australia is reviewing the model asbestos framework, including the regulations and codes of practice, and your Commonwealth, state or territory WHS regulator can advise on registers and compliance.
Who “management or control” means
The duty follows control of the building, not ownership alone. Safe Work Australia’s registers guide gives three examples of a person with management or control of a workplace:
- a business that owns and manages a commercial building, including plant that forms part of it such as lifts, air conditioners and boilers, even an owner who does not occupy it but still controls how it is maintained or refurbished;
- a business that occupies a commercial building and is allowed to make structural changes, for example under a lease, where how much control it has depends on the lease;
- a business given responsibility for managing a workplace, “such as a commercial property manager”.
If you are unsure whether that is you, the guide’s advice is to contact your work health and safety regulator.
The dates that decide it
Each source below sets the line in its own words. If your state or territory has no row of its own, your work health and safety regulator can tell you which line applies.
| Where | What the source says |
|---|---|
| Model WHS Regulations | Not required only if the workplace is a building constructed after 31 December 2003, no asbestos has been identified, and none is likely to be present from time to time. |
| Queensland | “An asbestos register is not required if the building was constructed after 31 December 1989 and no asbestos has been identified at the workplace and asbestos is not likely to be present.” |
| New South Wales | SafeWork NSW: a register must be kept if the workplace was built before 31 December 2003 or asbestos has been identified there. |
| Victoria | Victoria has not adopted the model regulations. Its official asbestos site says a register is needed when asbestos is identified in a workplace. |
Finding nothing does not end the duty. Safe Work Australia’s guide says that if a survey finds no asbestos at a workplace built before 2004 (in Queensland, before 1990), then you still need a register prepared and readily accessible, with a statement recording that no asbestos was found.
Assuming, instead of testing
Under the model regulations a duty holder may skip the competent person’s identification by assuming asbestos is present, or by having reasonable grounds to believe it is not; asbestos that is assumed counts as identified. Queensland’s examples of reasonable grounds are “a workplace building constructed after 31 December 1989”, no plant or equipment made or installed before 2004, and all asbestos having been removed.
Limits, and who may read it
- The model register and plan rules do not apply to parts of residential premises used only as homes.
- In Queensland, most strata bodies corporate for residential complexes are not a business or undertaking under the WHS laws unless they employ a worker, so the register requirement does not apply to them.
- In the ACT, only a licensed asbestos assessor may identify asbestos or asbestos-containing material.
Where a register is kept, the model regulations require it to be readily accessible to workers, their health and safety representatives, and businesses that do or will do work there, or that require work to be done.