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Australia In Process of NICNAS Reform

Last year, Australian Department of Health released an initiative of reforms to the National Industrial Chemicals Notification and Assessment Scheme (NICNAS). The reforms aim to decrease the industry’s regulatory compliance burden by simplifying chemicals assessment. According to the proposal, the reforms which entered into public consultation from October 2015 will be fully implemented by September 1st 2018.

At present, there have already been two rounds of consultation during which two consultation papers were released and received much industry feedback. Based on this feedback, the Department of Health has proposed some changes to the current notification and assessment system, including:

  • The terminology is proposed to be changed according to the assessment requirements of the chemicals:

Current term

Proposed new term

Class 1 chemicals

Exempted chemicals

Class 2 chemicals

Reported chemicals

Class 3 chemicals

Assessed chemicals

Class 2 notification

Pre-market advice (applicable to Reported chemicals)

Data requirements

Information requirements

Summary report

Assessment statement

  • The hazard bands for human health have been reduced from 5 down to 4.

  • The human health exposure categories for consumer use have been simplified. The rinse-off and leave-on cosmetics are combined together.

  • Volume thresholds for the human health Exposure Bands 3 and 4 have been modified to better align with international standards. For example, the volume threshold of >10 ton for non-cosmetic uses is aligned with the repeated dose information requirement of Canada and the EU.

The Consultation Paper 3 will be released in April, and there will be a four week consultation period for this phase. In the meantime industry is invited to continue providing feedback. The draft regulations are expected to be published in the first half of the next year.

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