The model Work Health and Safety (WHS) Act, adopted across most Australian jurisdictions, imposes a primary duty of care on persons conducting a business or undertaking (PCBUs) to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety of workers and others who may be affected by the work. In construction, this duty is especially onerous due to the inherent high-risk nature of the work and the complex multi-party arrangements typical of construction projects.

Construction-specific WHS regulations impose additional obligations beyond the general duties. These include requirements for safe work method statements (SWMS) for high-risk construction work, WHS management plans for construction projects, principal contractor duties on projects above prescribed thresholds, and specific controls for hazards such as working at heights, excavation, demolition, and hazardous chemicals.

The duty of care extends across the entire chain of control. Clients who commission construction work, designers, principal contractors, subcontractors, and individual workers all have WHS duties proportionate to their influence and control over the work. Understanding where your organisation sits in this chain and what duties attach to that position is the starting point for construction WHS compliance.

Safe Work Method Statements (SWMS) are a cornerstone of construction WHS compliance. Under the WHS Regulations, a SWMS must be prepared before any high-risk construction work (HRCW) is carried out. The regulations define 19 categories of HRCW, including work at heights above two metres, work near energised electrical installations, work involving demolition, and work in or near trenches or shafts deeper than 1.5 metres.

A SWMS must identify the high-risk construction work, specify the hazards and risks, describe the control measures to be implemented, and outline how the control measures will be monitored. It must be prepared in consultation with workers who will carry out the work, and all relevant workers must be informed of its contents before work begins. The principal contractor must ensure that SWMS are in place and must not allow HRCW to start until a compliant SWMS has been developed.

For construction projects where the total cost exceeds $250,000, the WHS Regulations require the principal contractor to prepare a WHS Management Plan before work commences. The plan must identify the names and positions of persons responsible for WHS, outline site-specific WHS rules, detail arrangements for consultation and coordination, describe incident reporting procedures, and include any site-specific induction requirements.

The principal contractor has overarching duties to coordinate WHS across the project, including managing shared risks, ensuring that subcontractors have appropriate SWMS, and maintaining a register of all SWMS on the project. The principal contractor must also install and maintain required signage, control site access, and ensure that site-specific induction is provided to all workers before they begin work.

The WHS Act requires that notifiable incidents are reported to the relevant regulator (such as SafeWork NSW, WorkSafe Victoria, or Workplace Health and Safety Queensland) immediately after the PCBU becomes aware of the incident. Notifiable incidents include the death of a person, a serious injury or illness, and a dangerous incident as defined in the regulations.

The site of a notifiable incident must be preserved until an inspector arrives or directs otherwise. Failure to notify or failure to preserve the site can result in significant penalties. Beyond notifiable incidents, construction PCBUs should maintain comprehensive incident and near-miss registers, conduct investigations for all incidents, and use incident data to inform risk management and continuous improvement.

FormaOS helps construction businesses manage WHS compliance by mapping WHS Act and Regulation obligations to operational controls, tracking SWMS currency across projects, managing incident notifications, and maintaining evidence of compliance activities. This ensures that construction organisations can demonstrate their duty of care with contemporaneous evidence, not retrospective documentation.