You might have heard some rumblings that Western Australia is introducing new Work Health and Safety (WHS) laws. Work started on modernising the WHS laws way back in 2017, and after a heap of industry consultation, the new rules will be in place from 31st March 2022.
It’s a bit to get your head around, so we’ve summarised the main things you need to know as a residential builder in WA.
What is happening?
The new laws are largely based on the national model used in other states and territories, so companies will now have similar obligations and requirements across Australia (except Victoria who like to be a bit different and do their own thing).
The WHS Act is supported by three sets of industry specific regulations to suit WA’s unique conditions. One is the “Work Health and Safety Regulations (General)” which applies to all workplaces including the residential building industry. The other two are for Mining and Petroleum industries so we won’t focus on them.
Why the change?
The new WHS laws are intended to improve the protection of workers by factoring in modern employment agreements, higher penalties for companies and individuals, and introducing the term ‘person conducting a business or undertaking’ (PCBU).
Did WA adopt all the clauses from the national model WHS laws?
Some sections of the WHS laws were tailored for WA following extensive consultation. The term ‘Not used’ has replaced any clauses that don’t apply in WA.
Will there be a transition period for businesses to adopt the new laws?
Transitional arrangements will be put into place where duties are new or are substantially changed from existing requirements.
Keep in mind, the systems for identifying, assessing and controlling known hazards should already be in place, as both the WHS legislation and the previous occupational safety and health legislation already focused on the elimination or minimisation of risks.
What are some of the key changes to what is currently in place?
Based on extensive consultation and recommendations, key changes by the government include:
- Terms and definitions including the new term PCBU
- Industrial manslaughter and increase in penalties
- Prohibition on insurance for monetary penalties;
- Union right of entry was retained in the Industrial Relations Act 1979 and not included in the WHS Act; and
- A specific duty is included for providers of work health and safety services to ensure those services do not pose a risk to persons at the workplace.
What the heck is a PCBU?
PCBU is a new term and stands for Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking. This term is used throughout WHS legislation to describe all forms of modern working arrangements. As well as an employer, a PCBU can be a:
- A builder (including principal contractors and sub-contractors)
- Corporation
- Association
- Partnership
- Sole trader
PCBUs have a duty to ensure the health and safety of their workers and others like visitors and volunteers.
PCBUs have the equal duty of care to a worker, even if there are multiple PCBUs involved. For example, if you employ a contractor who brings in a labour hire worker, you, the contractor and the labour hire company all share the same duty of care to that labour hire worker. So if an incident occurs, you can all be prosecuted under the WA WHS Act.
What is Management of Control?
Management of control (MoC) is when the PCBU has MoC of the workplace, where they are required to ensure that the means of entering and exiting the workplace and anything arising from the workplace are without risks to the health and safety of any person.
Who is the Principal Contractor (PC) on a construction site?
A PCBU that commissions a construction project is the Principal Contractor for the project. That person can engage another PCBU as the Principal Contractor and authorise them to have MoC of the workplace.
A construction project can only have one Principal Contractor at any specific time.
Find out more about how how you can work with other PCBUs as the principal contractor
What are the changes to Industrial Manslaughter?
The new offense of industrial manslaughter provides substantial penalties for PCBUs where a failure to comply with a WHS duty causes the death of an individual, in circumstances where the PCBU knew the conduct could cause death or serious harm.
The criteria for convicting someone for industrial manslaughter under the WHS Act is the same as convicting someone under the current WA gross negligence law. But the WHS Act states that prosecutors no longer have to convict the company to be able to convict individual company officers.
The WHS Act includes a penalty provision for industrial manslaughter. The maximum penalty for an individual for industrial manslaughter is $5 million and up to 20 years in prison, but penalties vary based on many factors.
What are the changes to Insurance?
If you’re prosecuted under the current OHS Act, your insurance can pay for your legal fees and your penalties.
Once the WHS Laws comes into effect, your insurance can still pay for your legal fees, but when it comes to paying the penalty, company officers and PCBUs cannot take out insurance to cover fines for breaches.
What does this mean for me?
Both the old laws and the new laws require you to have systems in place to identify, assess and control hazards.
These new laws are a good prompt to take stock of your current health and safety practices and make sure you’re protecting both your crew on site as well as your business. Here is the WHS laws checklist with advice on the key things you should be ticking off when it comes to your project site.
If you’re not yet a HazardCo member, sign up for a free trial today. We can help you get your health and safety sorted – making it simple and easy to manage but without cutting corners.
We’re here to support you, so don’t hesitate to get in touch for a chat if you have any questions or concerns. Give us a call on 1800 954 702 or email info@hazardco.com.
More information
Whenever you have an incident on site, whether it be big, small, or a near miss, you should record it in your incident register for your records, which is included in your HazardCo App. By reporting and investigating an incident, you will find the cause, but you are also likely to identify other areas where improvements can be made.
In some cases, you may also need to notify your state regular about the incident. WorkSafe Victoria has recently announced changes to the threshold of what is considered notifiable. Your HazardCo membership includes 24/7 incident support with the advisory team, so if you have an incident on site and you’re not sure if you need to notify the regulator, just give us a call and we will provide advice and walk you through the steps you need to take.
What is changing?
WorkSafe Victoria has revised the threshold for incidents that are notifiable.
When an incident occurs that doesn’t result in a serious injury, the threshold for whether it is notable was “incidents exposing a person in the immediate vicinity to an immediate risk”. The threshold is changing to incidents “exposing a person to a serious risk to the person’s health or safety emanating from an immediate or imminent exposure to a hazard”.
What is considered a serious risk?
WorkSafe considers that the term ‘serious risk to the health or safety of a person’ means:
- that exposure to the incident created a risk which, if it had eventuated, could have resulted in death or a serious injury or illness of a person (seriousness of potential harm), and
- the level of risk was not minor, in that there was a real likelihood of the risk eventuating (likelihood of incident occurring)
We now need to notify WorkSafe of incidents involving imminent exposure to hazards, why is this?
The amendments allow regulations to include certain illnesses as incidents for the purposes of notification. Illnesses could include large-scale, infectious diseases posing a serious health risk, like COVID-19, serious illnesses acquired in workplaces, like silicosis, and, potentially, work-related transmissible diseases.
Any other changes I need to know about?
WorkSafe has also stated that “Incidents relating to the collapse, overturning, failure or malfunction of, or damage to, plant will become notifiable if that plant is prescribed under regulations. The current provision that prescribed plant can only be used if licenced or registered is now outdated because Victoria no longer has a plant licensing regime.” This will be relevant to you if you use boom type mobile elevated work platforms and concrete placing booms.
How does this impact me?
Long story short, keep reporting all incidents (big and small) into your incident register using the HazardCo app so that you can learn from these experiences and you have proper documentation. If you have an incident on site, give us a call and we will provide advice on whether you should notify the regulator. If you do, we will walk you through the steps and be available for advice along the way.
When does this change come into play?
Effective from 17 March 2022.
We’re here to support you, so don’t hesitate to get in touch for a chat if you have any questions or concerns. Give us a call on 1800 954 702 or email info@hazardco.com.
For more information about these changes, visit the WorkSafe Victoria website.
WorkSafe Victoria has announced the reasons for issuing a prohibition notice have changed. Here’s what you need to know.
What’s changing?
WorkSafe inspectors in Victoria will now issue a prohibition notice if they think an activity “involves or will involve a serious risk to the health and safety of a person from an immediate or imminent exposure to a hazard.”
Under these circumstances WorkSafe inspections will also be allowed to give verbal or written directions. The directions are effective immediately and will be used to stop dangerous activity while the prohibition notice is being processed.
How is this different to what happened before?
Previously, WorkSafe could only issue a Prohibition notice if the risk had an “immediate health and safety risk or consequence”. WorkSafe inspectors can now issue a prohibition notice or give a direction relating to non-immediate yet serious health and safety risks and prohibit an activity until satisfied the risks have been addressed and the workplace made safe.
Does this mean businesses will shut down?
Prohibition notices are only issued in relation to a particular activity. If the risk is confined to a specific activity the entire workplace won’t be shut down.
I’m a small building company doing a handful of builds a year, do I need to worry about this?
Yes, all duty holders may be impacted.
Activities that pose a serious risk to health and safety of a person, arising from an immediate or imminent exposure to a hazard, can be prohibited by WorkSafe until the activity no longer poses that risk.
You need to be aware of these changes and to comply with any notices issued.
When is this happening?
Changes are effective from 17 March 2022.
We’re here to support you, so don’t hesitate to get in touch for a chat if you have any questions or concerns. Give us a call on 1800 954 702 or email info@hazardco.com.
For more information about these changes, visit the WorkSafe Victoria website.
FieldPulse, a powerful job management app for service providers, today announced its partnership with HazardCo, a top health and safety management company.
This strategic partnership brings together two leading systems that are revolutionising the way tradies do business. The partnership will feature comprehensive integrations for both the FieldPulse and HazardCo apps.
“FieldPulse’s partnership with HazardCo provides a solution for health and workplace safety that no other job management software can compete with. We’re very excited to begin this new chapter with the HazardCo team, and look forward to expanding our partnership offerings as FieldPulse continues to meet the wide-ranging needs of tradies everywhere,” said Bobby Shuey, Vice President of Channel Partnerships and Strategy at FieldPulse.
FieldPulse users can now access their important SWMS documents via the FieldPulse app, while HazardCo users can utilise FieldPulse’s job management software to better organise and structure their businesses.
Iain Dixon, Chief Executive at HazardCo says “Our goal is to help builders and tradies to feel confident they are keeping themselves, their crew, and their business safe. The new integration between HazardCo and FieldPulse brings health and safety tools into the daily job management process, making it faster and easier to complete H&S administration without cutting corners. We are pleased to be working with FieldPulse and know many trades will benefit from the end-to-end solution we can provide together.”
This partnership is the latest milestone in FieldPulse’s expansion into the APAC market. FieldPulse is a premier partner of Reece, Australia’s largest plumbing supplier, providing users with a direct line to Reece’s immense product catalog. With this latest partnership with HazardCo, FieldPulse expands its already growing list of products and services to best serve trade businesses around Australia and New Zealand.
FieldPulse CEO, Gabriel Pinchev, adds “We’re excited to kick things off with HazardCo, as we continue to build on our vision of containing the entire customer workflow within FieldPulse.”
About FieldPulse
Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, FieldPulse is the premium field service management partner for tradies around the world. FieldPulse makes doing the valuable work of the trades easier, thanks to a robust feature set including one-click customer communication, quick and easy invoicing and quoting, simple job scheduling, and more.
About HazardCo
HazardCo is a digital health and safety management system trusted by more than 10,000 businesses across Australia and New Zealand. HazardCo is designed to help Builders and Trades get home safely at the end of every day, providing members with simple guided tools and the very latest health and safety advice.
Our partners BuiltGrid help residential builders work more efficiently with their suppliers and trades to get projects delivered on time and budget. While you may use estimation software to get rough costings to bid on a customer project or set a budget on a spec home, BuiltGrid comes into play once you have council approval. It allows builders to get competitive quotes matching project needs, side-by-side quote comparisons and lock in materials and labour when you need them. All your supplier admin and communications are together, saving you time and minimising costly errors. Better still, builders don’t pay a cent to use the BuiltGrid platform.
Running a business from an email inbox
Although it’s common practice for small businesses to manage their business from an email inbox, email was never designed to be used that way. Searching years of email history may be useful at times but it’s difficult to find important messages or specific attachments unless you’re super disciplined with folders and labels. BuiltGrid clears your email inbox by linking all of your project docs, quotes, orders, communications and call-ups in one place. Supply partners get selective access to project information and you only get critical notifications.
Select suppliers. Attach a plan. Hit “Send”
“Geez!” is the first response from suppliers and trades when they receive a “Quote this” email with an attached plan and little else. Yet, this is the go-to method used by most builders to request quotes. It’s way too common, attracting inaccurate quotes, pricing issues, delays and rework. The free alternative is to use BuiltGrid’s industry standardised quote request and job scope framework – your suppliers and hip pocket will thank you.
Quote received. Now what?
Admin hassles only start with the “Quote this” email. What about following up suppliers, answering phone calls and questions, making changes, re-quote requests? Quote responses are sent at different times and based on a supplier’s interpretation with varying inclusions, exclusions and terms. It’s messy, time consuming and why most supplier selections are based on a quick view of the quote price! BuiltGrid shows you side-by-side competitive quote comparisons so you can assess where the real value is, beyond price. One-click quote acceptance locks in your supply and notifies unsuccessful suppliers – no more pesky suppliers chasing a deal.
Save 54 days and $39,051 this year
In short, BuiltGrid provides one integrated system for project info, quotes, comparisons, job orders and call-ups. If you’re building five projects a year, time gains have been shown to save builders 54 days. Applying a base hourly rate, that’s $39,051 in your pocket. On top of this, there’s additional profit margins from builders inviting more competition from the broader network. Use the time gained to secure your next project, focus on your craft or hang out with your family.
As a HazardCo member we know you value your time. Now there’s a better way to manage your quoting, ordering and call-ups. And it’s free! Yep, BuiltGrid is free to builders!
Join the free BuiltGrid network now
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