About The LEAD Group

The LEAD Group is a non-profit community group, set up in 1991 by parents of lead poisoned children and individuals who were appalled at the government's lack of services to address the needs of children affected by lead, and lack of a comprehensive strategy to prevent this most common environmental health problem.

The LEAD Group's 1992 aims were to eliminate childhood lead poisoning in Australia by the year 2002, and to protect the environment from lead. "Childhood lead poisoning" is here defined (as it is by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States), as a foetus, infant or child having a blood lead level above 10 µg/dL (micrograms per decilitre). This equates to 0.48 µmol/L (micromoles per litre). In October 2002 we recognised our first aim was unachievable so we changed it to: Working to eliminate childhood and foetal lead poisoning by the year 2012 and to protect the environment from lead

The LEAD Group is made up of membership, volunteers, a committee and a technical advisory board as well as staff of the Lead Advisory Service Australia. The work of volunteers is still essential to our full functioning, and new volunteers are always welcome at our office in Sydney. Our name, The LEAD Group, is an acronym for the Lead Education and Abatement Design Group and is intended to convey the two areas in which we operate:

1. information and referral service (including providing individualised answers to over sixty-four thousand inquiries from more than 100 countries). (Update 6 June 2009)
2. advocacy and assisting government policy development for lead abatement, that is, lead risk reduction (see below).

The LEAD Group became an incorporated association in 1992 and has always survived on its membership and subscription fees. The LEAD Group Inc first received funding in 1992 from Leichhardt Council, and for 1993 from the NRMA. For 1994 we were awarded a federal government grant for voluntary organisations, and we were funded in January 1995 again by Leichhardt Council. This funding provided limited operating expenses for telephone, fax, photocopier, Internet fees, newsletter publication, postage and childcare, but not enough to cover wages. In June 1995, in recognition of the valuable work of LEAD Group volunteers, the federal Labor government awarded a grant sufficient to employ three people to run the national LEADLINE Project (based on Freecall 1800 626 086).

In June 1996 when the federal Liberal government determined that the lead problem had been "solved", the NSW government doubled the national grant to The LEAD Group and funded us to provide more community services as well as the advisory freecall line, to NSW residents. In June 1997, virtually the same level of funding for NSW activities was made available for another year for the Lead Advisory Service (NSW) by the NSW Government but in October 1998 we took a 27% cut to the annual budget and in June 1999 we took a further cut of 10% and community services were cut pending the results of the NSW blood lead survey (due in October 1999) and funding ceased in November 2000. The Federal Liberal Government provided a $15,000 annual grant for 3 years from June 1999-2002 and a $20,000 grant in October 2002 for FY 2002-3, despite their having earned around $1bn since 1993 from the 2 cent excise on leaded petrol alone. The LEAD Group has sought more significant federal funding as well as funding from the petrol, battery and paint industries, to date without success. The Central Sydney Division of GPs was successful in gaining federal funding for a pilot project including paying members of The LEAD Group to go out to GP's surgeries to educate doctors about lead. If you would like to see more of The LEAD Group's work in your area, or think our dedicated staff deserve wages, write and tell your environment or health minister about your needs or concerns and how The LEAD Group can help or has helped.

At the national level, since 1991, The LEAD Group has carried out the following services:-

• telephone advice for parents and carers of lead poisoned children
• awareness raising about the problems of lead in non-point source communities in Australia, especially inner-city areas and specifically, to foster the development of a sizeable ceiling dust removal industry in Sydney, and generally, to foster and encourage the lead abatement industry, especially manufacturers of lead substitute products with export potential
• developing an excellent library (possibly the world's largest that is available to the public) covering all aspects of lead
• publishing LEAD Action News, our quarterly newsletter containing all the latest on lead issues - available at your local library (in NSW) - and provided free to low-income earners and groups or as a barter for useful lead-related information
• distributing free information packs, the most credible around (being from a non-industry, non-government source)
• organising numerous advice sessions and information nights for groups of parents of lead-affected children
• developing networks of people working on lead issues to create the best referral database on lead in Australia.

At the local government and community level The LEAD Group has:-

• been active in environment policy development with local councils especially through the NSW Council LEAD Project;
• created a branch, called Hunter LEAD Group, to deal with the Boolaroo lead smelter issue near Newcastle

At the State government level The LEAD Group has:-

• successfully lobbied for blood lead testing of 1-4 year-olds in Summer Hill, in inner western Sydney;
• lobbied for education programs and licensing for lead paint removalists and ceiling dust removalists
• played a major role in bringing about the NSW Lead Issues Paper and the setting up of the NSW Lead Taskforce and provided community representatives on 8 of the 9 Working Groups of the NSW Lead Taskforce;
• lobbied other State governments to develop a strategy for lead poisoning prevention, with partial success in Qld and Vic;

• successfully lobbied for a change in the blood lead "standard". The old "level of concern" of 25 µg/dL (micrograms per decilitre) was replaced in June 1993 with a series of blood lead "action levels" and a national goal of <10 µg/dL;
• been involved with the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) in workshops to design a national strategy on lead abatement ("Reducing Lead Exposure in Australia", July 1993);
• successfully lobbied for reduced use of lead in petrol. A 50% reduction in the lead level of petrol was agreed to and completed by 1-1-95 but an overall 75% reduction in total lead in petrol sold was also achieved through education by the year 2000, before the final phase-out of leaded petrol was achieved in Australia on 1/1/2002.

• contributed to an OECD lead monograph and the development of an OECD Lead Control Act and OECD Ministerial Agreement on lead risk reduction in 1996 (which Australia is a signatory to);
• spoken at Newcastle, Washington (1994 and 2002) and Bangalore (India) international lead conferences;
• successfully lobbied delegates from Australia and other countries for an international agreement on the phase-out of lead in petrol and other consumer products at the meeting of the Commission on Sustainable Development at the United Nations in New York in May 1994 and April 1995 and supported the Global Lead Initiative by AECLP.

The LEAD Group will continue to do everything necessary to achieve our aims, but would also like to help communities in other countries affected by lead poisoning, through the Internet. With such a broad range of functions, we need volunteers (from anywhere in Australia or the world) over an incredibly wide range of skills - from putting stamps on envelopes to talking at the United Nations (see - volunteers). If you can't spare the time to help, perhaps you can send in postage stamps, articles on lead, filing cabinets, paper (new or re-use) - anything! Or become a member of The LEAD Group and subscribe to LEAD Action News.