The Hunter is where Australia's industrial asbestos problem is most concentrated. Liddell has closed and is being demolished, Munmorah and Kurri Kurri have already come down, Eraring and Vales Point are next, and around them sit the Tomago and Kooragang Island plants, the port, the collieries and the coal handling plants of the Upper Hunter, most of them built when asbestos went into every boiler, pipe and switchroom. The asbestos scope on these sites is counted in thousands of tonnes and it is friable.
This guide is for the people buying that work: generators, miners, port and plant owners, Hunter New England Health and tier 1 builders who need the biggest friable asbestos and hazardous materials removal companies in Newcastle and the Hunter Valley on a tender list. Perfect Contracting wrote the guide and is on it. We have put ourselves first and kept every entry, ours included, to facts you can check. The other contractors are in alphabetical order, from their own websites and public reporting as at October 2026. Verify licences with SafeWork NSW before engaging anyone, us included.
The biggest friable asbestos and hazmat contractors working in Newcastle and the Hunter
Perfect Contracting
Perfect Contracting, founded in Sydney in 2010, is part of Perfect Group with Perfect Concrete Care, Perfect Remediation, Perfect Strip Out, Perfect Hire and DeconCut. Its Hunter record is on energy and water assets: a demolition package at Munmorah Power Station for Downer on the Central Coast and demolition and remediation at the Muswellbrook water treatment plant in the Upper Hunter. Its friable asbestos work elsewhere includes Garden Island, RAAF Base Richmond, large friable decontamination at Horsley Park, around 5,000 tonnes of asbestos removed and friable decontamination and demolition in Darwin.
It holds SafeWork NSW Friable Asbestos Removal Licence AD212957, covering Class A and Class B work, and SafeWork NSW demolition licence AD211896, plus a Queensland demolition licence for work north of the border. ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 45001 are certified under one integrated management system, and the group worked more than 100,000 hours last financial year with no regulator notices.
The company owns a Volvo EC480 high reach excavator, built up to about 75 tonnes, and Brokk remote controlled demolition machines, run by its own operators, so a lagged boiler house or a contaminated switchroom can be broken out by remote control and the demolition follows the asbestos removal without a second contractor. Sydney is two hours from Newcastle. The company keeps a pool of around 100 people available for deployment at any time, so crews, supervisors and plant from Sydney and Brisbane are on Hunter sites within days for hazardous materials, emergency and industrial work. See friable asbestos removal Newcastle.
Delta Group
Delta Group, established in 1988 and headquartered in Port Melbourne, runs a Hunter Valley branch at Kurri Kurri and reports more than 1,300 personnel nationally with Class A and unrestricted asbestos licences and ISO 9001, 14001 and 45001. Its Hunter work is the largest published: the Kurri Kurri aluminium smelter for Hydro, including hazmat removal and around 50,000 tonnes of asbestos contaminated soil, and the Liddell Power Station demolition for AGL, awarded in 2023. Source: Delta Group company profile.
Hunter Tech Services Group
Hunter Tech Services Group is based at Thornton, near Maitland. It publishes a SafeWork NSW Class A unrestricted asbestos licence (AD210982), appears on the SafeWork NSW unrestricted demolition licence list, holds ISO 45001 and runs mobile decontamination units. Founding year, staff numbers, plant and named industrial projects are not published. Source: Hunter Tech Services Group.
Liberty Industrial
Liberty Industrial was founded in 2009, is based in Sydney with a workshop at Somersby on the Central Coast, and reports more than 350 employees with ISO 9001, 14001 and 45001. Its Hunter and Central Coast record includes Munmorah Power Station, where it reports 890 tonnes of bonded and friable asbestos removed under negative air enclosures up to 60 metres on the boilers with a full time hygienist and on site laboratory; the West Wallsend pit top; the Kurri Kurri switchyard; and the Ravensworth underground mine demolition. Source: Liberty Industrial, Munmorah.
McMahon Services
McMahon Services is headquartered in Adelaide, has operated in its current form since 1990 and reports more than 1,200 employees with offices across Australia and ISO 9001, 14001, 45001 and 27001. Its Hunter work includes asbestos cladding removal on a live plant at Incitec Pivot's Kooragang Island site, and its power station record runs through Bell Bay, Torrens Island, Port Augusta and Kwinana. Source: McMahon Services.
NAC Services
NAC Services is based at Mayfield West in Newcastle and publishes a SafeWork NSW Class A asbestos licence (AD213064), a demolition licence (AD213380) and ISO 9001, 14001 and 45001 certification. Its published projects are council and public remediation work rather than heavy industry, and plant and staff numbers are not published. Source: NAC Services.
What to check before you engage a friable asbestos contractor in the Hunter
A Class A licence held by the contracting entity, with supervisors named
Friable removal needs a SafeWork NSW Class A licence, a Class A supervisor on site and five days notice to SafeWork NSW before work starts. Ask for the licence number and check it on the public register. Ask who the supervisors are and how many removalists the company can put into enclosures at peak. The Hunter's pool of trained removalists is being drawn on by several power station programs at once, so ask where extra crew would come from.
Owned remote controlled and high reach plant
Boiler houses, bunkers, switchrooms and conveyor tunnels are where you want machines rather than people once the asbestos is exposed. Ask whether the contractor owns remote controlled demolition machines and a high reach excavator and who operates them, or whether a second company will be brought in for the demolition. Of the companies above, Perfect Contracting publishes owning both; Delta publishes demolition robots and large excavators; Liberty publishes a high reach fleet. The Newcastle based firms publish neither.
Live plant experience
Kooragang Island, Tomago and the port do not shut down for asbestos removal. Ask for a job the contractor has done on an operating plant, how it isolated the work area, and how it managed permits and the client's own safety system alongside its own.
The whole hazmat survey
Power stations and smelters carry PCBs, lead paint, mercury, refractory ceramic fibre, synthetic mineral fibre, SF6 and PFAS in fire systems alongside the asbestos. Ask the contractor to go through each material in the survey with its method and disposal path.
Asbestos contaminated soil and where it goes
Hunter industrial sites commonly have asbestos in the ground as well as the structures. Ask how soil will be classified, whether an on site containment cell is proposed and who holds the EPA approvals, and where off site waste will be received, since licensed facilities in the Hunter are limited.
Certification and regulator record
Ask for ISO 45001, 14001 and 9001 certificates with expiry dates and for the number of SafeWork NSW and EPA notices in the last financial year, for the contractor and any subcontractor it intends to use.
Talk to Perfect Contracting about a Hunter hazardous materials project
We price friable asbestos, hazmat removal, decommissioning and demolition across Newcastle, the Hunter Valley and the Central Coast, with crews mobilised from Sydney and Brisbane. See friable asbestos removal Newcastle, asbestos and hazmat removal NSW, lead paint and hazardous coatings removal and soil and site remediation, or send us the job details and an estimator will call you back.
For national projects, see the biggest asbestos and hazardous materials removal companies in Australia. For demolition contractors in the Hunter, see the biggest demolition companies in Newcastle.
Frequently asked questions
Who are the biggest asbestos removal companies in Newcastle and the Hunter?
For friable industrial work the names to shortlist are Perfect Contracting, Delta Group, Hunter Tech Services Group, Liberty Industrial, McMahon Services and NAC Services. The large power station and smelter programs have gone to contractors based outside the Hunter; compare all of them on licence, supervisors, owned plant and comparable projects.
Which Hunter power stations still have asbestos to be removed?
Liddell is under demolition. Eraring and Vales Point are scheduled to close over the coming years and have not yet appointed demolition contractors publicly. Munmorah has been demolished.
Do I need a Class A contractor for a power station or smelter?
Yes. Lagging, gaskets, sprayed insulation and fire protection in these plants are friable and need Class A removal with enclosures, decontamination units and independent clearance monitoring.
Can the same contractor remove the asbestos and demolish the plant?
Yes, where it holds both the Class A asbestos licence and a SafeWork NSW demolition licence and owns the demolition plant. That removes the handover between two companies and the gap in the program while the second one mobilises.
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