What's changing

The new Radiation Protection and Control (RPC) Act introduces several changes to the way radiation safety is regulated, many of which are given more specific meaning through the draft regulations, codes of compliance and fees.

The changes are:

  • greater national uniformity
  • opportunity for consolidation of authorisations
  • creating offences for causing harm
  • setting new penalties
  • introducing order-making powers.


Key changes can be found in the Explanatory Report and Public Consultation Report.

Specific changes in the draft regulations and codes include the following.

Exclusions

The RPC Act provides for the exclusion of matters from regulation through designation, definition, classification and prescription of materials, sources, and activities. These are given effect in the regulations through provisions for the exclusion of prescribed classes of operations, persons, circumstances, material, things, substances, apparatus, premises, and sources from regulation.

The exclusions are based on those agreed through the National Directory for Radiation Protection (NDRP), a comparison of exclusions/exemptions in other jurisdictions, and a review of exemptions approved by the EPA over the past 10 years. The regulations also provide for classes of exemptions based on prescribed factors (risk criteria) on which the Minister can further exempt persons, operations, circumstances, premises, sources, or apparatus from the requirement to hold an authorisation.

Exemptions

All existing individual exemptions will expire on the first anniversary of the commencement of the new RPC Act.

The general criteria for exemption are:

  • radiation risks arising from the practice or from a source within the practice are sufficiently low as not to warrant regulatory control, with no appreciable likelihood of situations arising that could lead to a failure to meet the general criterion for exemption
    OR
  • regulatory control of the practice or the source would yield no net benefit, in that no reasonable measures for regulatory control would achieve a worthwhile return in terms of reduction of individual doses or of health risks.


Paragraphs 35 and 36 of the NDRP describes the criteria for exemption, and Schedule 2 of the NDRP list specific radiation apparatus or radioactive sources to be exempted from notification, registration or licensing requirements.

NB: Exemption does not absolve a person from the general duty of care.


General duty of care


A person must, in dealing with a radiation source, take all reasonable and practicable measures to ensure that:

  • the exposure of people to radiation from the radiation source is kept as low as is reasonably achievable; and
  • the risk of exposure of people and the environment to dangerous or potentially dangerous radiation from the radiation source is minimised; and
  • the radiation source is protected from misuse that may result in harm to people or the environment.


In addition to a new class of exemption where the Minister is satisfied that a licence or registration is not warranted, the following specific changes to exemptions are included in the draft regulations:

  1. Testing for developmental purposes and mining or mineral processing – operations of a prescribed class
    1. Amend existing exemptions to include a broader range of treatment processes and removing the reference to ‘calendar’ year.
    2. Add a new class – operations where the Minister is satisfied that it will not under any reasonably foreseeable circumstances, including failure of control system, result in an annual dose above 1 mSv per year to any person.
  2. Facilities – person of a prescribed class
    1. Kept existing and added a new class – persons where the facility can be registered as a source or apparatus and compliant with relevant regulations and codes associated with the source or apparatus.
  3. Transport of radioactive material – prescribed circumstances
    1. Circumstances where a source is held under a licence to use or handle and is not required to have a management licence for possession.  
    2. Circumstances in which an individual transports radioactive material in the course of their employment by the holder of a radiation management licence that applies in respect of the radioactive material.
  4. Transport of radioactive material – prescribed radioactive material
    1. Radioactive material contained in an excepted package as defined by the Transport Code. 
    2. Radioactive material within the body of a person or animal (living or dead).
  5. Possession of a radiation source – prescribed circumstances
    1. Amended exemption while awaiting determination by allowing possession to be prohibited or restricted by notice.
    2. Amended by adding licence to transport to the other 3 management licences that do not also require a licence to possess.
  6. Possession of a radiation source – prescribed things
    1. An article, device or other thing that only emits non-ionising radiation.
    2. A radiation source that is unsealed radioactive material listed in Schedule 6 Clause 2, in the specified circumstances
    3. Exempt radiation apparatus - see point 14 below.
    4. Exempt sealed radioactive source - see point 13 below.
  7. Use or handle radioactive material – prescribed classes of person
    1. Kept existing.
  8. Use or handle radioactive material – prescribed classes of substances
    1. The substances listed, or are contained in a device that is listed, in Schedule 6 Clause 2.
  9. Operation of radiation apparatus – prescribed classes of persons
    1. Kept existing
  10. Operation of radiation apparatus – prescribed classes of apparatus
    1. Kept existing and added apparatus listed in Schedule 6 Clause 1.
  11. Registration of premises – prescribed classes of premises
    1. Kept existing and added transport licence to types of management licences that do not require separate registration of premises
    2. Premises in which unsealed radioactive ores are handled or kept that have not been subject to chemical processing or are less than 100 kg
    3. Premises at which unsealed radioactive sources are kept or handled while let out on hire if the period of hire is 3 months or less.
  12. Registration of premises – prescribed classes of substances
    1. The unsealed radioactive materials listed in Schedule 6 Clause 2, in the specified circumstances.
  13. Registration of sealed radioactive sources – prescribed classes of sources
    1. The sealed radioactive sources listed in Schedule 6 Clause 2, in the circumstances specified
    2. Sealed radioactive sources held within a facility the operations of which are authorised by a radiation management licence
    3. Sealed radioactive sources that are held only as stock for the purposes of sale and are not used
    4. Sealed radioactive sources that have been let out on hire for a period of 3 months or less and in respect of which the person receiving the source on hire holds a radiation management licence
  14. Registration of apparatus – prescribed classes of apparatus
    1. Ionising radiation apparatus that produces ionising radiation incidental to its function (including electron microscopes and apparatus containing a cathode ray tube or an electronic valve) if the apparatus does not, in normal operating conditions, cause an equivalent dose rate exceeding 1 µSv/h at a distance of 0.1 m from any accessible surface of the apparatus
    2. Ionising radiation apparatus made incapable of operation
    3. Ionising radiation apparatus held as stock for sale by a person who has complied with regulation 36 (other than apparatus operated by another person and located at premises of a person who has not complied with that regulation)
    4. Ionising radiation apparatus being installed by a person who has complied with regulation 36
    5. Apparatus listed in Schedule 6 clause 1
  15. Abandonment of radiation source – prescribed things
    1. Any radiation source not requiring a licence or registration.

A specific issue raised by stakeholders is the exemption of persons operating apparatus or handling radioactive material under supervision. The current regulations include 12 classes of persons exempt from the requirement to hold a licence when acting under supervision. It is important to ensure a robust system that accounts for direct and indirect supervision requirements via a graded approach.

A flexible approach for achieving this is to include a broad-based exemption of a prescribed class of persons working under supervision subject to supervision requirements approved as part of a radiation management plan. This could include specifying, based on the particular circumstances, the:

  • nature of supervision, eg direct vs indirect based on competency progression supported by assessment
  • qualification of supervisor, including requirement to hold a relevant licence
  • operations and activities persons will undertake during the various stages of their training
  • respective roles and responsibilities of the supervisor and supervised person in relation to the radiation operations and activities
  • assessment process that will determine progression through the various supervision stages
  • record-keeping arrangements that include documented assessments of supervised persons.    

Consultation has concluded