The Agricultural and Veterinary Chemical Code (Chemical Products) Standard 2025 (the Products Standard) is a legislative instrument made on 6 August 2025 under section 6E of the Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Code (the Agvet Code), scheduled to the Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Code Act 1994.
The draft Products Standard was published for consultation (as required under regulation 8AF(1) of the Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Code Regulations (the Regulations) on the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) website, and in the APVMA Gazette, on 10 June 2025. Consultation closed on 8 July 2025, and no comments were received in response to the consultation.
This instrument has been made to make standards for agricultural and veterinary chemical products containing malathion as the active constituent. In undertaking its recent reconsideration of malathion, the APVMA identified a risk to users from toxic impurities formed during manufacture and storage of products containing malathion. To treat this risk, the APVMA imposed several new controls on products containing malathion, including making a standard to limit impurities in products containing malathion as an active constituent. Further information on the APVMA’s final regulatory decision on malathion can be found in the APVMA Special Gazette, 2 May 2024. The Products Standard will help ensure that continued use of products containing malathion are safe for people, plants, animals and the environment by setting limits for toxic impurities.
Under regulation 8AF(4) of the Regulations, the APVMA must publish a notice in the APVMA Gazette and on its website when it makes or varies a standard under section 6E of the Agvet Code. This notice was published in the APVMA Gazette No 19, Tuesday 16 September 2025.
The APVMA made the Products Standard on 6 August 2025, which commenced on 12 August 2025, the day the instrument was registered.
The Products Standard is accessible via the Federal Register of Legislation website.
It is envisaged that the Products Standard will be amended from time to time as required, for example if a need is identified in a future reconsideration of another active constituent for a standard to ensure that continued use of that active is safe for people, plants, animals and the environment.
For further information please contact:
Director Chemistry and Manufacture
Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority
GPO Box 574
Canberra ACT 2601
Phone: +61 2 6770 2392
Email: enquiries@apvma.gov.au