Nathan Ellwood doesn't come across asbestos in his work as a commercial stonemason, but he's among the thousands of construction industry workers who has done or is about to do asbestos training to comply with new ACT legislation.
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Mr Ellwood, who owns Earthage Stone Masonry, along with two of his employees have already completed his training, and five more of his employees will complete it on Thursday at a cost of $197 a person.
But despite the expense, Mr Ellwood thinks it's not such a bad idea.
"Coming from New Zealand, I didn't really know what asbestos was, [so] I think it is beneficial," he said.
"It is tax-deductible training. The way I look at it is if they [my employees] have got knowledge of asbestos and it's going to save their life, the $197 doesn't really worry me.
"I know some of my mates have a different opinion – they're a lot smaller and they don't see why they have to do it.
"I'm more commercial, so I don't really work around old houses, but in saying that we did work in Lyneham where they did find asbestos. But they found that way before we got there."
Another Canberra stonemason who didn't wish to be named said they shouldn't be coming across asbestos on a work site.
"For us to find asbestos is a massive failure of all the systems before us.
"For me as a person, [the training] was probably useful, but as a tradesman it was a total waste of time," he said, noting he had sheet asbestos in his own home.
Another industry named in the legislation needing asbestos training was interior decorating, something interior designer and decorator Catherine Henderson believes should actually be "interior designers".
"Designers tell you to knock a wall out, decorators will say to put a curtain on it – there's a big difference between decorators and designers; there's crossover but it's designers not decorators [more likely to be exposed to asbestos]," she said.
Ms Henderson said it was unlikely she would come across asbestos, but didn't think training was an illogical requirement.
"I might say 'we need to knock that wall out', but it's the builder who makes the decision and gets in the walls and the ceiling and says 'yeah we can do that' or 'no we can't'," she said.
"But look, the more you know about this stuff, even if it only came up once and it stopped someone getting asbestosis then it could be good.
"I suppose it would be good for me to know what I can advise [home renovators] to do if they're planning to do it [renovate] themselves – what you need to look out for."
Ms Henderson thought the cost – up to about $300 – seemed a bit high for a four-hour training session.
