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What law applies

In order to understand the workplace health and safety requirements for construction work, and your obligations under the law you must consider and understand relevant legislation and codes of practice.

General health and safety obligations
What you must do
Specific regulations for construction

General health and safety obligations

To understand your obligations and safety requirements you must be familiar with the:

Every Queensland employer must have workers' compensation insurance. Most employers insure with WorkCover Queensland, while a small number of large organisations have their own insurance. This insurance coverage ensures that employees injured at work receive financial support.

What you must do

It is a requirement of the Workplace Health and Safety Act 1995 that risks must be assessed and control measures then implemented and reviewed to prevent or minimise exposure to the risks.

If the regulation describes how to prevent or minimise a risk at your workplace you must do what the regulation says. If there is a code of practice that describes how to prevent or minimise a risk at your workplace you must do what the code says or adopt and follow another way that gives the same level of protection against the risk.

If there is no regulation or code of practice about a risk at your workplace you must choose an appropriate way to manage exposure to the risk. People must, where there is no regulation or code of practice about a risk, take reasonable precautions and exercise proper diligence against the risk.

See the Risk Management Code of Practice 2007 for further information.

Specific regulations for construction

Part 20 of the Workplace Health and Safety Regulation 2008 specifies particular requirements for construction work.

The Regulation covers:

On-the-spot fines are attached to the regulations. The amount of fines will reflect the severity of the breach.

For further information refer to the following:

Please note, from 18 November 2004 the Workplace Health and Safety Act 1995 was amended so that:

Refer to the Falling objects and construction work - Legislative application (PDF, 147 KB) to determine principal contractor and relevant persons compliance with obligations for falling object risks.