Fair Trading Minister, Linda Burney, today announced a permanent ban in NSW on the supply and sale of toys containing lead.

Ms Burney said lead in toys is a serious issue and of concern at both a state and national level.

“This permanent ban will be in force until the Commonwealth completes a review and introduces a suitable mandatory safety standard which can be mirrored in NSW,” Ms Burney said. 

“Earlier this year a number of toys were recalled by leading distributors of children’s toys worldwide as a result of them containing higher than acceptable lead levels.

“In September an interim ban was imposed on the supply of children’s toys with accessible materials with a lead migration level greater than 90 mg/kg. 

“Since the interim ban, Fair Trading has been actively monitoring the market and has independently tested 50 toys in accordance with the testing procedures specified in the Australian/New Zealand Standard AS/NZS ISO 1824:2003, Safety of toys, Part 3: Migration of certain elements.

“Of those tested, three toys were detected which had unacceptable levels of lead and all three were removed from sale.”

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