Major new ban for Australian homes from today after years of tradies falling ill

After years of harrowing stories of young Aussie tradies becoming sick and even dying at a young age, a new ban will officially come into effect from today. And industry insiders say it will permanently close a deadly "loophole".

Engineered stone had become a common material in the building of Aussie homes over the years, used in kitchen benchtops in properties across the country. But from January 1, the federal government will strengthen restrictions on it, banning imports from entering Australia.

As most engineered stone products are imported into the country, it will provide a genuine deterrence at the border and should help stamp out the use of the potentially harmful product.

Speaking to Yahoo News, Dr Renee Carey from Curtin University, who has researched the prevalence and impact of silicosis in Australia, welcomed what she called the "closing of a loophole" when it comes to engineered stone, saying the change from 2025 will help save thousands of lives.

Those working with engineered stone and modifying it risk inhaling very harmful silica dust (crystalline silica) which is found in certain stone products. The dust is 100 times smaller than a grain of sand and you can be breathing it in without even knowing.

According to the Cancer Council of Australia, exposure to silica dust can lead to the development of lung cancer, silicosis (an irreversible scarring and stiffening of the lungs), kidney disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

A 2022 study by researchers at Curtin University that helped highlight the dangers of the product estimated more than half a million Australian workers were being exposed to silica dust, with Bunnings and Ikea bowing to pressure the following year to stop selling the product.

In the same research, Dr Carey and colleagues tried to estimate how many people were using engineered stone in Australia to get a true picture of the damage.

"We came up with what we thought was an OK estimate, and then we modelled forward to see what the future outcome would be in terms of disease," she told Yahoo.

"We had about 4,500 people using engineered stone in our estimates," she said. "One in four were developing silicosis. So it was quite high".

"Our modelling also predicted an engineered stone ban would prevent around 100 Australians from developing lung cancer and around 770 to 960 workers from being diagnosed with silicosis."

In July 2024, Australia implemented a total ban on the domestic use, supply, and manufacture of engineered stone benchtops, panels and slabs across Australia. But the import ban takes it one important step further.

"From the start of next year, it won't only be illegal to install these products. It will be illegal to bring them into the country at all," the federal Minister for Home Affairs Tony Burke said in September. The Government provided $32.1 million over two years to the Australian Border Force to enforce the import prohibition in this year's Budget.

Bans come too late for hundreds of Aussie tradies

The potential harm of silica has been known about for decades. "[But] engineered stone only came into the market say 20 years ago … and the first reported case of silicosis from engineered stone was from 2015," Dr Carey explained to Yahoo.

Since then our understanding of the lethal harms have grown to the point of ushering in the outright ban. But one person who wasn’t lucky enough to know of the dangers in time is 35-year-old Tasmanian tradie Ben Harrison.

After moving back to his home state of Tasmania with his partner and three young sons, Ben received a phone call that changed his life forever. "My friends in Queensland, they called me saying one of my friends was sick and was about to die. They said I needed testing," he recalled to Yahoo News last year.

Ben's friend and previous co-worker Anthony White had been diagnosed with silicosis. Sixteen months later he was dead.

Then Ben himself was diagnosed with the same disease — one day before his 30th birthday. And doctors soon told him it was terminal.

"At first I sort of didn't take it seriously, to be honest. I didn't think I had a chance in hell and having it. But then I was diagnosed, and I was in shock. After that was kind of a blur."

Ben explained he had "no idea" of the dangers associated with silicon-based kitchen benchtops and was never provided with informative or preventative measures to protect himself and his co-workers by employers when he worked with the material.

"On a busy day we couldn't see each other it was that dusty," Ben recalls of his work cutting the benchtops.

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