I approve the Construction Work Code of Practice. I am satisfied that this code of practice was developed by a process described in section 274(2) of the Work Health and Safety Act 2011.
This Code of Practice for construction work is an approved code of practice under section 274 of the Work Health and Safety Act (the WHS Act).
An approved code of practice is a practical guide to achieving the standards of health, safety and welfare required under the WHS Act and the Work Health and Safety Regulations (the WHS Regulations).
A code of practice applies to anyone who has a duty of care in the circumstances described in the code. In most cases, following an approved code of practice would achieve compliance with the health and safety duties in the WHS Act, in relation to the subject matter of the code. Like regulations, codes of practice deal with particular issues and do not cover all hazards or risks that may arise. The health and safety duties require duty holders to consider all risks associated with work, not only those for which regulations and codes of practice exist.
Codes of practice are admissible in court proceedings under the WHS Act and Regulations. Courts may regard a code of practice as evidence of what is known about a hazard, risk or control and may rely on the code in determining what is reasonably practicable in the circumstances to which the code relates.
Compliance with the WHS Act and Regulations may be achieved by following another method, such as a technical or an industry standard, if it provides an equivalent or higher standard of work health and safety than the code.
An inspector may refer to an approved code of practice when issuing an improvement or prohibition notice.
This Code of Practice has been developed by Safe Work Australia as a model code of practice under the Council of Australian Governments’ Inter-Governmental Agreement for Regulatory and Operational Reform in Occupational Health and Safety for adoption by the Commonwealth, state and territory governments.
Scope and application
This Code provides guidance to principal contractors and other persons conducting a business or undertaking who carry out construction work on how to meet the health and safety requirements under the WHS Act and Regulations relating to construction work.
Icon of housing contrution workHousing construction work
While the information and guidance contained in this code is relevant to all types of construction work, additional guidance marked with this symbol Icon of housing contrution work is provided for businesses working within the housing construction sector.
Relationship with other codes
This Code should be read in conjunction with other codes of practice on specific hazards and control measures relevant to the construction industry including:
Demolition Work
Excavation Work
Managing the Risk of Falls at Workplaces
Managing Noise and Preventing Hearing Loss at Work
Preventing Falls in Housing Construction
Confined Spaces
Hazardous Manual Tasks
Safe Design of Structures
Managing the Work Environment and Facilities
Managing Electrical Risks in the Workplace
How to Manage and Control Asbestos in the Workplace
How to Safely Remove Asbestos.
How to use this Code of Practice
In providing guidance, the word ‘should’ is used in this Code to indicate a recommended course of action, while ‘may’ is used to indicate an optional course of action.
This Code also includes various references to sections of the WHS Act and Regulations which set out the legal requirements. These references are not exhaustive. The words ‘must’, ‘requires’ or ‘mandatory’ indicate that a legal requirement exists and must be complied with.
1. INTRODUCTION
This Chapter describes a number of key terms used in the WHS Act and Regulations and within this Code to help duty holders understand what type of construction work is covered by the legislation and what the related duties are.
1.1 What is ‘construction work’?
Regulation 289: Construction work is defined as any work carried out in connection with the construction, alteration, conversion, fitting-out, commissioning, renovation, repair, maintenance, refurbishment, demolition, decommissioning or dismantling of a structure.
Construction work can be commercial, civil or housing construction and includes the following:
any installation or testing carried out in connection with an activity referred to in the above definition
the removal from the workplace of any product or waste resulting from demolition
the prefabrication or testing of elements, at a place specifically established for the construction work, for use in construction work
the assembly of prefabricated elements to form a structure, or the disassembly of prefabricated elements forming part of a structure
the installation, testing or maintenance of an essential service in relation to a structure
any work connected with an excavation
any work connected with any preparatory work or site preparation (including landscaping as part of site preparation) carried out in connection with an activity referred to in the above definition
an activity referred to in the above definition that is carried out on, under or near water, including work on buoys and obstructions to navigation.
‘In connection with’ means related to or associated with construction work. Contracts covering a project are a good guide to what activities are done in connection with construction. Examples include:
work by architects or engineers in on-site offices or conducting on-site inspections, but not architects or engineers working in offices away from the construction site
work by a mechanic on an excavator on-site and not in an isolated service area
delivering building materials to different points on the site, but not making deliveries to a single designated delivery area
excavating for a basement garage
testing fire equipment on the construction site
supervisors and manager moving around the site to monitor work
surveying a site after construction has started, but not surveying a Greenfield site before construction has started, and
traffic control on a construction site.
‘In connection with’ does not include planning and design activities that might have been carried out prior to commencing the construction work.
Icon of housing contrution work For the purposes of this Code, housing construction work involves construction work relating to the following:
detached houses
attached dwellings, separated from each other by a fire resisting wall, such as terrace, row or town houses
villa-homes, strata or company title home units or residential flats
boarding and guest houses, hostels or similar with a floor area <300m², and
ancillary buildings to the above, such as private garages, gazeboes and carports.
The above are based on classes 1, 2 & 10 of the Building Code of Australia. Work on multi-storey buildings, i.e. above three habitable storeys, is not considered housing construction work for the purposes of this Code.
Examples of construction work are provided in Table 1 at Appendix A.
1.2 What is not ‘construction work’?
Construction work does not include any of the following:
the manufacture of plant
the prefabrication of elements, other than at a place specifically established for the construction work for use in the construction work
the construction or assembly of a structure that, once constructed or assembled, is intended to be transported to another place
testing, maintenance or repair work of a minor nature carried out in connection with a structure
mining or the exploration for or extraction of minerals.
Examples of what is not construction work are provided in Table 2 at Appendix A.
1.3 What is a ‘structure’?
The WHS Act defines a structure as anything that is constructed, whether fixed or moveable, temporary or permanent. A structure includes:
buildings, masts, towers, framework, pipelines, transport infrastructure and underground works (shafts or tunnels), for example noise reduction barriers on a freeway, communications masts or towers, electricity transmission towers and associated cables, flying cables and supports, guyed towers such as a ski-lift tower
foundations, earth retention works and other earthworks, including river works and sea defence works
formwork, falsework or any other structure designed or used to provide support, access or containment during construction work, for example a prop or formwork system
an airfield
a dock, harbour, channel, bridge, viaduct, lagoon or dam
a sewer or sewerage or drainage works, for example storm water drains, sheet piling to divert the course of a river or to build a cofferdam, underground storage tanks for an irrigation system, road tunnels, ventilation or access shaft for underground services.