Workplace Health & Safety rules and expectations provide a framework to protect the workplace health, safety and welfare of all workers and all other people who might be affected by the work.
General Health and Safety Obligations
To understand your obligations and safety requirements you must be familiar with the:
National Work Health and Safety Act 2011, which imposes obligations on people at workplaces to ensure workplace health and safety
WH&S 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 – managing risk
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.
Risk Management
- To properly manage exposure to risks, a person must:
- Look for the hazards
- Determine who might be harmed and how
- Decide on control measures
- Put controls in place
- Review the controls
Control measures should be implemented in the following order:
- Get rid of the harm or prevent the risk … if this is not possible, then …
- Replace with something less harmful
- Separate people from the harm
- Change work processes or the physical work environment, for example, by redesigning work, plant, equipment, components or premises
- Apply administrative arrangements, for example, limit entry or time spent in a hazardous area
- Use personal protective equipment
