Purpose:

The main object of this legislation is to provide a balanced and nationally consistent framework to secure the health and safety of workers and workplaces.

Objectives:

• To protect workers and other persons against harm to their health, safety and welfare by eliminating or minimising risks from work or specified substances or plant.
• To provide for fair and effective workplace representation, consultation, cooperation and issue resolution in relation to work health and safety.
• To encourage unions and employer organisations to take a constructive role in promoting improvements in work health and safety practices, and assisting businesses and workers to achieve a healthier and safer working environment.
• To promote the provision of advice, information, education and training in relation to work health and safety.
• To secure compliance with this Act through effective and appropriate compliance and enforcement measures.
• To ensure appropriate scrutiny and review of actions taken by persons exercising powers and performing functions under this Act.
• To provide a framework for continuous improvement and progressively higher standards of work health and safety.
• To maintain and strengthen the national harmonisation of laws relating to work health and safety and to facilitate a consistent national approach to work health and safety in the ACT.

Key Provisions:

• Primary Duty of Care (Section 19): Requires persons conducting a business or undertaking to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety of workers and other persons, including providing a safe work environment, safe plant and structures, safe systems of work, and adequate information, training, and supervision.
• Further Duties of Persons Conducting Businesses or Undertakings (Sections 20-26): Imposes specific duties on persons with management or control of workplaces, fixtures, fittings or plant, and on designers, manufacturers, importers, and suppliers of plant, substances, or structures, to ensure these are without risks to health and safety.
• Duties of Officers, Workers and Other Persons (Sections 27-29): Defines the duty of officers to exercise due diligence to ensure compliance, and requires workers and other persons at the workplace to take reasonable care for their own and others’ health and safety and to comply with reasonable instructions and policies.
• Incident Notification (Part 3): Establishes definitions for notifiable incidents (death, serious injury/illness, dangerous incident, sexual assault incident) and mandates immediate notification to the regulator, along with a duty to preserve incident sites.
• Authorisations (Part 4): Requires authorisation (licence, permit, registration, or other authority) for certain workplaces, plant, substances, work, or for persons to have prescribed qualifications or experience, as specified by regulation.
• Consultation, Representation and Participation (Part 5): Outlines duties for duty-holders to consult, cooperate, and coordinate with other duty-holders and workers, provides for the election and functions of health and safety representatives (HSRs) and health and safety committees (HSCs), and establishes procedures for issue resolution and the right to cease unsafe work.
• Provisional Improvement Notices (Division 5.7): Empowers HSRs to issue provisional improvement notices requiring the remedying of contraventions or prevention of likely contraventions of the Act.
• Enforceable Undertakings (Part 11): Allows the regulator to accept written undertakings from a person in connection with a contravention or alleged contravention of the Act, excluding Category 1 or industrial manslaughter offences.

Evidence of Compliance Requirements For Agricultural Organisations:

• Primary Duty of Care (Section 19):
  • Action: Provide and maintain a work environment without risks, safe plant and structures, safe systems of work, safe use/handling/storage/transport of plant, structures and substances, adequate welfare facilities, and necessary information, training, instruction, or supervision. Monitor workers’ health and workplace conditions. Maintain accommodation owned or controlled for workers if necessary for engagement.
  • Documentation: Maintain safety management plans, risk assessments, safe work procedures (SWPs), plant maintenance records, substance manifests/Safety Data Sheets (SDS), welfare facility inspection logs, training records (including attendance and topics covered), and health monitoring records for workers.
• Duties of Designers, Manufacturers, Importers, and Suppliers of Plant, Substances or Structures (Sections 22-25):
  • Action: Ensure that plant, substances, or structures are designed, manufactured, imported, or supplied to be without risks to health and safety. Conduct or arrange for necessary calculations, analysis, testing, or examination. Provide adequate information about the purpose, test results (including hazardous properties of substances), and conditions for safe use.
  • Documentation: Maintain design specifications, test reports, quality assurance records, Safety Data Sheets (SDS) for substances, user manuals, and warning labels or instructions provided to downstream users.
• Duty to Notify of Notifiable Incidents (Section 38):
  • Action: Immediately notify the regulator by telephone or in writing upon becoming aware of a notifiable incident (death, serious injury/illness, dangerous incident, sexual assault incident) arising from the business or undertaking’s conduct.
  • Reporting Requirements: The notice must be given by the fastest possible means (telephone or written). If required by the regulator, a written notice must be given within 48 hours of that requirement being made. The written notice must be in an approved form or contain approved details. For sexual assault incidents, only specific details (name/contact of business, workplace description, police report status) should be given, with no information disclosing the identity of involved persons.
  • Record-keeping: Keep a record of each notifiable incident for at least 5 years from the date notice is given to the regulator.
• Duty to Preserve Incident Sites (Section 39):
  • Action: Ensure the site where a notifiable incident occurred is not disturbed until an inspector arrives or any earlier time an inspector directs. This includes any plant, substance, structure, or thing associated with the incident. (Exemptions apply for assisting injured/deceased, making site safe, police investigations, or inspector permission).
  • Documentation: Site preservation protocols, incident scene logs, and photographic/video evidence of the undisturbed site may be required to demonstrate compliance.
• Requirements for Authorisation (Part 4):
  • Action: Ensure that any workplace, plant, substance, or type of work that regulations require to be authorised (licensed, registered, permitted, or requiring specific qualifications/experience) is appropriately authorised and that all conditions of authorisation are complied with.
  • Documentation: Maintain current licences, permits, registrations, certifications for plant/substance designs, and records of workers’ qualifications or experience (e.g., training certificates, competency assessments). Evidence of compliance with specific authorisation conditions (e.g., inspection schedules, maintenance logs, operational permits).
• Duty to Consult with Other Duty-Holders (Section 46):
  • Action: Consult, cooperate, and coordinate activities with all other persons who have a duty in relation to the same work health and safety matter, so far as is reasonably practicable.
  • Documentation: Maintain records of consultation meetings, agendas, minutes, and documented agreements or coordination plans.
• Duty to Consult Workers (Section 47):
  • Action: Consult with workers who are, or are likely to be, directly affected by work health and safety matters by sharing relevant information, providing a reasonable opportunity for workers to express views and raise issues, taking their views into account, and advising them of the consultation outcome in a timely manner. If a Health and Safety Representative (HSR) exists, the consultation must involve them.
  • Documentation: Maintain records of consultation activities, including meeting minutes, feedback forms, and evidence of information shared with workers.
• General Obligations to Health and Safety Representatives (HSRs) (Section 70):
  • Action: Consult on WHS matters with HSRs, confer with them when requested, allow access to information related to hazards and worker health and safety (excluding personal/medical information without consent), allow HSRs to be present at WHS interviews with workers (with consent), provide reasonable resources, facilities, and assistance to HSRs, and permit HSRs to accompany inspectors. Allow HSRs reasonably necessary time for their functions with pay.
  • Documentation: Records of consultation/conferral with HSRs, logs of information provided to HSRs, records of resources/facilities provided, records of paid time off for HSR functions.
• Obligation to Train Health and Safety Representatives (Sections 72 & 72A):
  • Action: If requested by an HSR, allow them to attend regulator-approved WHS training. For major construction projects, the principal contractor must ensure HSRs attend such training. Allow time off work within 3 months of the request (or election for major construction projects) and pay course fees and reasonable associated costs.
  • Documentation: Training attendance records, course completion certificates, and payment records for course fees and associated costs.
• List of Health and Safety Representatives (Section 74):
  • Action: Prepare and keep an up-to-date list of all HSRs and deputy HSRs. Display a copy of this list in a prominent and readily accessible place at the principal place of business and other appropriate workplaces. Provide a copy of the up-to-date list to the regulator as soon as practicable after it is prepared.
  • Documentation: The HSR list itself, photographic evidence of display, and confirmation of submission to the regulator.
• Establishment and Duties of Health and Safety Committees (HSCs) (Sections 75-79):
  • Action: Establish an HSC within 2 months of a request by an HSR or 5+ workers, or if required by regulation. Ensure at least half of the committee members are non-nominated workers. Allow HSC members time for meetings/functions with pay. Allow HSC access to WHS information (excluding personal/medical without consent).
  • Documentation: Records of HSC establishment, meeting minutes, records of paid time off for HSC members, and records of information shared with the HSC.
• Compliance with Notices (Sections 97, 99, 193, 197, 197D, 200, 210):
  • Action: Comply with provisional improvement notices, improvement notices, prohibition notices, prohibited asbestos notices, and non-disturbance notices within specified timeframes. Display copies of such notices in a prominent and readily accessible place at the affected workplace part.
  • Documentation: Records demonstrating completion of required remedial actions, dated evidence of notice display (e.g., photographs), and internal compliance reports.
• Powers of Regulator to Obtain Information (Section 155):
  • Action: Comply with written notices from the regulator requiring information (signed statement), production of documents, or appearance to give oral/written evidence.
  • Documentation: Copies of submitted information, produced documents, and records of attendance for interviews/evidence giving.
• Powers to Copy and Retain Documents (Section 174):
  • Action: Permit the person who produced a document, its owner, or their authorised person, to inspect or make copies of the document at all reasonable times while it is retained by an inspector.
  • Documentation: Records of access provided for inspection or copying.
• Powers Supporting Seizure (Section 177):
  • Action: Not tamper with seized things or restrictions without inspector approval. Comply with requirements to take seized things to a stated place by a stated time and remain in control of them.
  • Documentation: Records of compliance with inspector directions regarding seized items.
• No Insurance or Other Indemnity Against Penalties (Section 272A):
  • Action: Do not enter into, provide, or take the benefit of any insurance contract or arrangement that purports to cover liability for monetary penalties under this Act.
  • Documentation: Review of insurance policies and indemnity agreements to ensure no such coverage exists.
• Person Not to Levy Workers (Section 273):
  • Action: Do not impose a levy or charge on workers for anything done or provided in relation to work health and safety.
  • Documentation: Financial records demonstrating no such charges are levied on workers.

Metadata Keywords:

Work Health and Safety, Australia, Agriculture, Compliance, Legislation, Workplace, Safety Management, Incident Notification, Regulatory Requirements, ACT.

Publication Information:

Publication date: 9 July 2025 Version number: Republication No 28

Agricultural Industry Alignment:

Beef & Veal, Chicken, Coarse Grains, Cotton, Dairy, Eggs, Fisheries, Forestry, Horticulture, Oilseeds, Pig, Sheep Meat, Sugar, Wheat, Wine, Wool.

Date Added to database:

This document was parsed and added to the database on 25-07-2025

URL:

https://www.legislation.act.gov.au/DownloadFile/a/2011-35/current/PDF/2011-35.PDF →