On 23 June 2015, the Senate referred an inquiry into non-conforming building products to the Senate Economics References Committee for inquiry and report by 12 October 2015. The committee was granted a number of extensions and the inquiry lapsed at the dissolution of the 44th Parliament. On 11 October 2016, the Senate agreed to the committee's recommendation that this inquiry be re-adopted in the 45th Parliament.

On 13 October 2016, as part of its broader inquiry, the committee resolved to inquire into the illegal importation of products containing asbestos and adopted additional terms of reference.

The committee has tabled three interim reports:

• Interim report: Safety—'not a matter of good luck' on 4 May 2016;

• Interim report: aluminium composite cladding on 6 September 2017; and

• Interim report: protecting Australians from the threat of asbestos on 22 November 2017.

On 27 November 2018, the Senate granted the committee an extension to report by 4 December 2018 (final report).

All correspondence and evidence previously received for this inquiry has been made available to the new committee. This means that submissions already provided to the committee about this issue do not need to be re-submitted.

The committee intends to refer to all evidence received during the 44th Parliament.

Submissions to this inquiry have closed.