Exposure Standards Become Exposure Limits in Victoria on 1 December 2026: What Changes for Manufacturers

What's changing on 1 December 2026?

From 1 December 2026, Victoria's Occupational Health and Safety Regulations 2017 are set to stop using the term "exposure standard" and replace it with "exposure limit." This isn't a cosmetic wording change. The Victorian Government published an exposure draft — the Occupational Health and Safety Amendment (Workplace Exposure Limits) Regulations — that would revoke the existing exposure standard definitions in regulation 5 and replace them with new terms: "exposure limit," "asbestos exposure limit," "lead exposure limit" and "noise exposure limit," each tied to a current reference document, mainly Safe Work Australia's national Workplace Exposure Limits (WEL) list. About 35 separate provisions across the Regulations would be updated to match, covering manufacturers' duties, atmospheric monitoring, lead-risk work, crystalline silica, emergency procedures, safety data sheets and two schedules. As with any exposure draft, the final wording made could still shift before it's registered — but the commencement date and the underlying national WEL switch are fixed, so don't wait on the drafting detail to start preparing.

The change is made under section 158 of the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 (Vic) — the general regulation-making power. For most manufacturers the legal duty itself doesn't change: you still have to keep airborne contaminants and noise below the relevant limit. What changes is which number that limit is, for a meaningful list of substances, and what the Regulations call it.

Why "just a rename" still matters to your floor

Safe Work Australia's WEL list isn't a straight copy of the old Workplace Exposure Standards (WES) list with new letterhead. It's the first full review of exposure limits since 2003, and while many values carry across unchanged, a real number of them have moved — some down, a handful up, some removed, some added for the first time. If your safety data sheets, risk assessments or ventilation design were signed off against the old WES figure, they need to be checked against the new WEL figure before the switch, not after a worker's air monitoring result comes back over the line.

Some of the changes relevant to a typical Victorian factory floor, drawn from Safe Work Australia's published WES-to-WEL comparison:

Substance	Old WES	New WEL	Direction
Nickel (metal and insoluble compounds)	1 mg/m³	0.1 mg/m³	Tighter
Cobalt (metal dust and fume)	0.05 mg/m³	0.02 mg/m³	Tighter
Manganese (dust and compounds)	1 mg/m³	0.1 mg/m³ inhalable / 0.02 mg/m³ respirable	Tighter
Carbon monoxide	30 ppm	20 ppm	Tighter
Wood dust (softwood)	5 mg/m³ TWA	2 mg/m³ TWA	Tighter
Acetone	500 ppm TWA	250 ppm TWA	Tighter
Toluene	50 ppm TWA	20 ppm TWA	Tighter
Diesel particulate matter (as respirable elemental carbon)	No limit	0.01 mg/m³	New
Methyl ethyl ketone (MEK)	150 ppm TWA	200 ppm TWA	Looser
Hexavalent chromium compounds	Had a WES value	No numeric limit — reclassified	Removed

That last row matters more than the others. Hexavalent chromium — found in some welding fume, chrome plating and pigments — moves into a category called non-threshold genotoxic carcinogens (NTGCs). Substances in this category don't get a "safe" airborne number at all; the duty becomes to eliminate exposure, or where that's not reasonably practicable, substitute or minimise it as far as reasonably practicable, with no exposure level treated as acceptable. There are 33 substances in this group, and how they'll be regulated going forward is still being settled, so if any welding, plating or pigment process on your site touches one of them, this is worth tracking specifically rather than assuming it washes through as a simple number swap.

The substances still "to be confirmed"

Nine substances have been pulled out for additional impact analysis before WHS ministers lock in a final WEL value: respirable crystalline silica, formaldehyde, benzene, chlorine, copper (fumes, dusts and mists), hydrogen cyanide, hydrogen sulphide, nitrogen dioxide and titanium dioxide. Until ministers decide, their existing WES values carry over unchanged. We've covered silica's current 0.05 mg/m³ TWA limit and the engineered stone ban separately — nothing about that number changes on 1 December 2026, but don't assume it's settled for good either.

Noise: effectively unchanged, just renamed

If your main exposure concern is noise rather than airborne contaminants, the draft amendment doesn't move the number. The noise exposure limit is defined the same way the noise exposure standard always was — an 8-hour equivalent continuous level of 85 dB(A), or a C-weighted peak of 140 dB(C), measured at the employee's ear position. We've set out the control hierarchy and audiometric testing duties that sit underneath that number in our general guide to noise, dust and fume exposure duties — that guide now needs reading alongside this one, since the duty described there is what's being relabelled.

Lead and asbestos get their own specific treatment in the draft amendment (a dedicated "lead exposure limit" and "asbestos exposure limit," referenced from regulation 15 and regulation 23 respectively), rather than sitting under the general exposure limit definition. If you run lead-risk work or have asbestos still in situ in an older building, treat those as separate checks, not folded into the general airborne contaminant review.

What to actually do between now and 1 December 2026

1. Pull your current chemical and dust inventory. Walk the floor and list every process that generates airborne contaminants — welding, cutting, grinding, spraying, solvent use — and match each one against a substance on the WES list today.
2. Check each one against the new WEL list once Safe Work Australia's updated document is finalised, not the general commentary — the specific number is what your controls need to meet.
3. Flag anything that moved into the NTGC category. If a process touches hexavalent chromium or another non-threshold genotoxic carcinogen, the conversation shifts from "stay under the limit" to "eliminate or minimise as far as reasonably practicable" — a different risk assessment, not just a smaller number.
4. Update your hazardous substances register and SDS files so the terminology and the referenced limit match the new Regulations once they commence — see our guide on what belongs in that register if yours hasn't been reviewed recently.
5. Re-check ventilation and extraction design for any process where the new limit is tighter than the old one — equipment sized to the 2017 figure may not be enough for the 2026 one.
6. Don't wait for an inspector to raise it. The commencement date is fixed; a WorkSafe inspector arriving in early 2027 will expect your documentation to already reflect the new terminology and limits, not be mid-update.

FAQ

Does this change what I actually have to do, or just what it's called? Both. The legal mechanism — keep workers below a defined airborne concentration or noise level — stays the same. What changes is the specific number for a meaningful list of substances, which the regulations now call an "exposure limit" rather than an "exposure standard," following the amendment made under s.158 of the OHS Act 2004 (Vic).

When does the new terminology take effect in Victoria? The published exposure draft sets 1 December 2026 as the commencement date for the Occupational Health and Safety Amendment (Workplace Exposure Limits) Regulations, matching the national WEL switch. Until then, the current Workplace Exposure Standards list still applies and nothing changes.

Is the silica exposure limit changing? Not yet confirmed. Respirable crystalline silica is one of nine substances Safe Work Australia has flagged for additional impact analysis, so its current 0.05 mg/m³ TWA carries over unchanged until ministers make a decision.

What happens to substances with no safe exposure level, like hexavalent chromium? They're reclassified as non-threshold genotoxic carcinogens (NTGCs). There's no numeric "safe" limit — the duty is to eliminate exposure or, where that's not reasonably practicable, minimise it as far as reasonably practicable.

Do I need to do anything before 1 December 2026, or can I wait? Start now. Checking your inventory of airborne contaminants against the new WEL values, and reviewing controls for anything that's tightened, takes longer than people expect once ventilation or extraction upgrades are involved — leaving it until the commencement date risks being non-compliant from day one.

This article is general information for Victorian manufacturers, not legal advice. Last updated: 7 October 2026.