What law applies
In order to understand the workplace health and safety requirements for legionella, and your obligations under the law you must consider and understand relevant legislation and codes of practice.
General health and safety rights and obligations
What you must do
Specific legislation for Legionella
General health and safety obligations
To understand your obligations and safety requirements you must be familiar with the:
- Workplace Health and Safety Act 1995 (PDF, 766 KB), which imposes obligations on people at workplaces to ensure workplace health and safety
- The Workplace Health and Safety Regulation 2008 describes what must be done to prevent or control certain hazards which cause injury, illness or death
- Codes of practice, which are designed to give practical advice about ways to manage exposure to risks common to industry.
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 legislation for Legionella
Section 35 of the Workplace Health and Safety Act 1995 places certain obligations on the owners of specified high risk plant such as cooling towers.
Owners must maintain the plant in a condition that ensures that it operates without any risk to health and safety. This means regular testing and cleaning.
An owner of plant that incorporates a cooling tower cannot use the plant (or allow it to be used) at a workplace unless the plant is registered with Workplace Health and Safety Queensland.
There are also requirements under the Public Health Act 2005 (PDF 1.23 MB) to report notifiable diseases, of which Legionella is one.
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