Asbestos tests are being done on three Canberra buildings, including federal public service offices, after the discovery this week that building materials were supplied by a company linked with asbestos finds in Perth and Brisbane.
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Work Safety Commissioner Greg Jones said his inspectors had spoken at length on Friday to Yuanda, the company reported to have supplied Chinese-sourced asbestos-containing roof panels to the Perth children's hospital and in metal skirting in a government building in Brisbane.
Yuanda has supplied three buildings in Canberra – the Sirius building occupied by federal health department staff in Woden, the City West Offices occupied by federal education department staff in the city, and a building at section 54 in Kingston.
The alert was raised by the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Engineering Union, whose ACT secretary Dean Hall said asbestos imports from China were another Fluffy disaster in the making.
The free-trade environment would leave Australia wide open to asbestos-contaminated products from China, India and other countries where they were still legal. Asbestos was contained in imported house cornices, in wallboard and ceiling board, without sufficient checks, he said.
"It's laced through a lot of products. It's a major concern, and the question is how is the authority and how is the government going to protect Canberrans and Australians from asbestos and other products," Mr Hall said.
Mr Jones said Yuanda imported a range of building products and asbestos had so far been found in only a particular type of product that had not, according to preliminary information, been used in the Canberra buildings. But the company was organising to have its materials in the three buildings independently tested. Tests had been done on one, with results expected next week.
Mr Jones said one of the products used in Canberra was a sealant around windows. Any asbestos would be bonded asbestos, not the loose Mr Fluffy-type asbestos that sparked the mass buyback and demolition of Canberra homes.
The City West Offices were built by Cimic, finished in 2010. Cimic declined to answer any questions about Yuanda's supply of materials or what was being done to check the building.
The Sirius building in Woden was built by the Doma Group, whose general manager of development, Gavin Edgar, said the first the company had heard of the issue was on Tuesday last week when Yuanda had emailed. The company had told Doma the materials used in Canberra were not the same as those found to contain asbestos interstate, he said.
"It was news to us. Are we comforted by it? I don't know yet,. We are going to understand the background to the incident then make contact with the new owners," he said.
The building was now owned by Mirvac.
Yuanda did not respond to a request for comment.
In July, Yuanda told the ABC the contaminated product had been supplied to the firm's China-based manufacturing plant, and had unknowingly been used only on the Brisbane and Perth projects. The supplier had provided a fraudulent test certificate saying they were asbestos free, the company said, adding it would no longer accept test certificates from China directly, instead having products tested in Australia.
