Consultations on proposed amendments to the Schedule to the Act and the requirement top prepare and publish summary reports - April & July 2010 Stakeholder submissions.

In the April 2010 issue of the Chemical Gazette, NICNAS sought comment on two proposed amendments to the Industrial Chemicals (Notification and Assessment) Act 1989 (the Act), namely:

• A proposal to remove the requirement to prepare and publish summary reports for both new and existing chemicals: and
  
  
• Proposed amendments to the Schedule to the Act, that will:
• introduce requirements for the assessment of new active ingredients (UV filters) in secondary sunscreens, which were previously regulated by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) prior to the cosmetic reform amendments to the Act in September 2007;
• provide for the screening assessment of all new industrial chemicals for their potential to be persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic (PBT), in accordance with Australia’s obligations under the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPS); and
• make other amendments in accordance with international best practice, including a more specific requirement on public exposure to the chemical and revision of some physical and chemical properties.

Submissions were received from the following:

• ACCORD
• BASF
• David Black
• Du Pont (Australia) Limited
• Ian Rae

BASF and Du Pont (Australia) Limited have not given permission for their submissions to be made publically available.

In light of the submissions, NICNAS refined some proposed amendments to the Schedule and the requirement to prepare and publish summary reports and in July 2010 NICNAS published a notice on its website seeking further comment on a revised proposal. 

Submissions were received from the following and a summary can be found here:

• ACCORD
• APMF
• Estee Lauder
  
• PACIA
• Reckitt Benckiser
• Unilever

NICNAS has undertaken a regulatory impact analysis of the amendments in the refined proposal, and the Office of Best Practice Regulation has confirmed that these are of a minor or machinery nature, and therefore a Regulatory Impact Statement is not required (OBPR reference 11997).  NICNAS will publish its final decision on the refined proposal once approval processes are completed, and implement legislative change to give effect to appropriate amendments as soon as practicable.