• Legislation
  • How the legislation works
  • Amendments to workplace health and safety legislation
  • Workplace Health and Safety Act 1995
  • Workplace Health and Safety Regulation 2008
  • Dangerous Goods Safety Management Act 2001
  • Dangerous Goods Safety Management Regulation 2001
  • Ministerial notices
  • Codes of practice
  • Boards of inquiry
  • Workplace consultation
  • Regulatory impact statements
  • Provisional improvement notice (PIN)
  • Regulation of the storage and handling of dangerous goods
  • Regulatory jurisdictions
  • Prescribed infringement notice
• Harmonisation of OHS laws
• Prosecutions
  • Prosecutions list
  • Cause to prosecute
  • Defences
  • Appeals and internal review of decisions
  • Access to your information
  • Publishing policy
• Enforceable undertakings
  • Enforceable undertakings list
  • Enforceable undertakings process
• Compliance and enforcement
  • Who enforces the law?
  • Workplace audits
  • Compliance and enforcement policy
• Penalties
  • What is a breach?
  • What is the maximum penalty?
  • Fines
• Inspections
  • WHSQ inspectors
  • Workplace inspections
  • Inspectors' powers
  • Inspector conduct
  • Enforcement options
  • Complaints about WHSQ inspectors
  • Investigations

• Rights and obligations
• Risk management
• Workplace incidents and inspections

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Inspectors' powers

Inspectors have unfettered power to enter any workplace or suspected workplace or any place where specified high risk plant is situated (i.e. amusement rides, cooling towers, escalators). Inspectors also have the power to enter land around domestic premises to gain access to a workplace or suspected workplace.

Inspectors can also enter any place with a warrant or the property owner¿s consent.

To gain consent, the inspector must tell the occupier:

• the purpose of entry
• that consent does not have to be given.

If consent is given, the inspector may ask the occupier to sign an acknowledgement of the consent and will give the occupier a copy of this acknowledgement.

An inspector can also apply to a magistrate for a warrant to enter a place to exercise inspectors¿ powers.

Every appointed inspector holds an identity card which shows a recent photo of the inspector and is signed by the inspector. Before exercising a power (including entry into the workplace) inspectors must show their identity card.

Following entry to a place, inspectors have the power to:

• search any part of the place
• inspect, measure, test, photograph or film any part of the workplace or anything at the workplace
• take samples
• copy a document at the workplace
• make enquiries or conduct surveys to assess the degree of risk at the workplace or the standards of health and safety existing at a workplace
• inquire into the circumstances and probable causes of workplace incidents
• take any person, equipment or materials into the workplace to assist the inspector to exercise a power
• require a person to give reasonable help
• require a person to produce certain documents or ask other people to provide these documents, for example maintenance records kept by a mechanic contracted by an employer to do the work).

Inspectors also have specific powers to seize things ¿ such as plant, equipment or substances - in the following circumstances:

• where the inspector believes the thing is evidence of an offence against the Act
• if seizing the thing is consistent with the purpose of entry
• where a warrant was issued for the seizure
• if the inspector believes the thing is defective, hazardous or likely to cause an injury.

Inspectors can also seize workplaces or part of the workplace if it is believed to be defective or hazardous.