Most businesses working with silica dust know the stakes. Silicosis is a serious, irreversible lung disease, and NSW has made it clear that protecting workers from crystalline silica dust is not negotiable.
What is harder to keep up with is exactly what the law now requires. Since September 2024, the obligations have expanded significantly, and the Work Health and Safety Regulation 2025 has added further duties on top of that.
Mandatory training, annual respiratory fit testing, silica risk control plans, a new worker register and stricter exposure limits on the way. If you are across the why but not sure you are across the what, here is the full picture.
What is the NSW WHS Regulation 2025?
What silica obligations were already in place?
The Silica Worker Register: the new duty that now applies
Respiratory fit testing: what the law requires
What is changing with airborne exposure limits?
WHS Regulation 2025 FAQs
How Munro Respiratory Services can help
A summary of what changed under the WHS Regulation 2025
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What is the NSW WHS Regulation 2025?
The Work Health and Safety Regulation 2025 is the current regulatory framework governing workplace health and safety in NSW. It commenced on 22 August 2025, replacing the Work Health and Safety Regulation 2017.
For businesses working with crystalline silica substances, it carries forward the obligations introduced under Chapter 8A from September 2024, consolidates them into the updated framework, and introduces the Silica Worker Register as a new legal duty.
If you were already compliant under the 2017 Regulation, your existing controls, training records, and fit-testing regime remain valid.
The question most businesses need to honestly answer is whether they have kept up with everything that has followed since.
What silica obligations were already in place?
The 2025 Regulation did not arrive in a vacuum. On 1 September 2024, Chapter 8A of the WHS Regulation came into effect, adopting the national model provisions for crystalline silica substance (CSS) processing.
These are the foundations your compliance needs to be built on, and they apply whether or not you were aware of them at the time.
Core PCBU duties
According to SafeWork NSW, PCBUs must have the following in place:
- Assess whether workers are carrying out high-risk processing of a CSS
- Apply the hierarchy of controls when processing any CSS
- Maintain a silica risk control plan for any high-risk processing tasks
- Provide approved silica awareness training to workers involved in high-risk CSS processing, or those at risk of RCS exposure
- Conduct air monitoring and report any WES exceedances to SafeWork NSW within 14 days of receiving the report
- Provide health monitoring where there is a significant risk to a worker’s health from ongoing high-risk CSS processing
These obligations apply across mining, construction, tunnelling, quarrying, drilling, demolition, stone masonry, manufacturing, and any other industry where workers process or are exposed to crystalline silica dust.
Approved silica awareness training
According to SafeWork NSW, approved training must cover 11 specific criteria, including:
- Identifying the health risks of RCS exposure
- Understanding how silica dust is generated
- Interpreting safety data sheets
- The correct selection, use and fit testing of respiratory protective equipment
Training can be delivered in-house or by a third party, provided the criteria are met.
Munro Respiratory Services delivers approved silica awareness training across NSW and remotely, covering all 11 criteria required by SafeWork NSW.
The Silica Worker Register: the new duty that now applies
Established under the Work Health and Safety Amendment (Silica Worker Register) Regulation 2025, it is now a legal requirement for PCBUs to direct workers to carry out high-risk crystalline silica processing.
Who needs to register and when
According to SafeWork NSW,PCBUs must register each wor ker within 28 days of them commencing high-risk silica processing work. Workers only need to be registered once during their employment with a given business.
What counts as high-risk processing
High-risk processing includes:
- Cutting, drilling, grinding or polishing materials that contain crystalline silica
- Tunnelling, excavating or quarrying
- Demolition work involving CSS
- Crushing or screening CSS materials
According to SafeWork NSW, if a risk assessment cannot determine whether processing is high-risk, it must be treated as high-risk until proven otherwise.
The register applies across construction, tunnelling, demolition, manufacturing, mining, quarrying and stone masonry. Businesses operating under the Coal Industry Act 2001 are exempt.
Enforcement
Since 2018, SafeWork NSW inspectors have conducted more than 5,200 workplace visits related to silica, and inspectors are currently targeting silica safety on construction sites. Registration is where the paper trail starts.
| “Five thousand site visits tell you SafeWork isn’t easing into this. Businesses that have been compliant since 2024 are in a good position. The ones still catching up don’t have much runway left.” Kate O’Connor |
Respiratory fit testing: what the law requires
Fit testing requirements have not changed under the WHS Regulation 2025, but that does not mean every business has them right.
The obligation to fit test workers before they first use a respirator, and every 12 months after that, has applied since September 2024 and continues under the current regulation.
Respiratory protective equipment must comply with AS/NZS 1716:2012 and AS/NZS 1715:2009. A respirator that has not been fit tested is not a control measure. If the face seal is not verified, contaminated air bypasses the filter entirely.
Fit testing must be carried out:
| When | Detail |
| Before first use | Required before a worker wears a close-fitting respirator for the first time |
| Annually | Required every 12 months for workers in ongoing high-risk silica exposure roles |
| New respirator model issued | Required each time a different make or model of respirator is provided |
| Change in facial characteristics | Required after significant weight change, dental work, facial surgery or other changes that may affect the face seal |
Munro Respiratory Services conducts on-site respiratory fit testing across NSW. Certificates are issued promptly after each test, and automated annual reminders ensure your team’s compliance never lapses without warning.
What is changing with airborne exposure limits?
There is one more change on the horizon that NSW businesses should not leave until the last minute.
WHS ministers have agreed to replace the current Workplace Exposure Standards (WES) for airborne contaminants with Workplace Exposure Limits (WEL), with the transition completing on 1 December 2026.
The numerical exposure limit for respirable crystalline silica remains at 0.05 mg/m³as an 8-hour time-weighted average. What changes is the legal weight behind it.
WELs carry stronger enforcement provisions than WES values. The change is designed to make clear that these are limits that should not be exceeded, not benchmarks to be managed around.
WHS Regulation 2025 FAQs
Does silica awareness training need to be repeated?
No. Under the NSW WHS Regulation, silica awareness training is a one-off requirement. Once a worker completes an approved course, they do not need to repeat it.
Training records must be maintained for the duration of their employment in a high-risk role and for five years after they leave. Fit testing, by contrast, must be renewed every 12 months.
Can silica awareness training and fit testing be done on the same day?
Yes. Munro Respiratory Services can deliver on-site or same-day, providing a practical way to meet both requirements at once and keep disruption to your team to a minimum.
What records do I need to keep and for how long?
Fit test certificates should be retained and updated annually. For the Silica Worker Register, registration details are held by SafeWork NSW, but principal contractors are recommended to confirm with subcontractors that their workers are registered.
Does fit testing apply to workers who are near silica dust, not just those directly handling it?
Yes. Under the NSW WHS Regulation, fit testing applies to any worker who may be exposed to crystalline silica dust, whether they are directly involved in processing or working in its proximity. If there is a risk of exposure, the requirement applies.
How Munro Respiratory Services can help
Munro Respiratory Services, based in Central West NSW, was founded by Kate Munro, whose background in mining and exploration through Munro Geological Services means the team understands the environments your workers are actually in, not just the legislation that governs them.
If your business operates in mining, construction, quarrying, drilling, or any industry where workers handle or work near crystalline silica, Munro Respiratory Services can help you get compliant and stay compliant.
If your training records or annual fit tests are not current, now is the time to sort them. Book a session with Munro Respiratory Services and get your team covered.
