SPA Safety Passport

Correct: Under Sections 47 to 49 of the WHS Act, a Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking (PCBU) has a mandatory duty to consult with workers who are, or are likely to be, directly affected by a matter relating to work health or safety. This includes when proposing changes that may affect the health and safety of workers. Effective consultation requires sharing relevant information, giving workers a reasonable opportunity to express their views, and taking those views into account. Engaging HSRs and affected staff directly to assess the new hazards is the only way to satisfy the requirement for meaningful participation in the risk management process.

Incorrect: Distributing a memorandum is a form of information sharing but does not constitute consultation, as it lacks the interactive element of taking worker views into account before decisions are finalized. Commissioning an external audit provides expert data but does not fulfill the PCBU’s specific legal obligation to consult with the workers themselves. Relying on past committee minutes is insufficient because the duty to consult is triggered by the specific change in question and must be current and relevant to the specific risks introduced by the new layout.

Takeaway: The duty to consult is a mandatory, proactive requirement that must involve a two-way exchange of information with affected workers and their representatives whenever changes impacting workplace health and safety occur.

Correct: Under Section 47 of the Work Health and Safety (WHS) Act, a PCBU has a primary duty to consult with workers who are, or are likely to be, directly affected by a matter relating to work health or safety. This duty is specifically triggered when proposing changes that may affect the health and safety of workers, such as changing work systems, equipment, or procedures. Relying solely on external consultants without engaging the actual workforce violates the requirement to allow workers to contribute to the decision-making process.

Incorrect: The requirement for WHS entry permits relates to union officials entering a workplace for specific purposes and is not a standard requirement for external safety consultants hired by the PCBU. There is no general legislative requirement under the WHS Act to submit risk registers to the regulator for approval before implementing operational changes; the responsibility for risk management remains with the PCBU. While workers have a right to request the election of an HSR, the PCBU is not unilaterally required to appoint one specifically for a project management office unless requested by the work group.

Takeaway: In Australian WHS law, consultation with affected workers is a mandatory legal duty during change management, not a discretionary administrative step.

Correct: Under the Australian WHS Act, a Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking (PCBU) has a mandatory duty to consult with workers and their representatives. This involves sharing relevant information about health and safety matters, giving HSRs a reasonable opportunity to express their views, and taking those views into account before decisions are finalized. Effective consultation is a proactive process, not a retrospective notification.

Incorrect: Appointing a single management liaison to streamline communication often bypasses the direct involvement of HSRs required by law. Providing summary reports after decisions are made fails the requirement to consult during the decision-making phase. Limiting HSR involvement to high-risk incidents is insufficient, as the duty to consult extends to all matters that may affect the health and safety of workers, including routine policy changes and risk assessments.

Takeaway: WHS compliance requires the PCBU to involve HSRs in the decision-making process by sharing information and considering their input before safety-related actions are taken.

Correct: Under the Australian WHS Act and the Hazardous Manual Tasks Code of Practice, a Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking (PCBU) has a legal duty to consult with workers who are directly affected by a health and safety matter. For ergonomic hazards, the risk assessment must go beyond generic checklists to analyze the specific postures, movements, and forces involved in the actual tasks performed by the workers.

Incorrect: Providing a generic checklist (option b) is often insufficient for complex task environments like trading desks and does not replace the requirement for genuine consultation. Procurement warranties (option c) relate to asset management rather than health and safety risk assessment. Insurance coverage (option d) is a financial risk transfer mechanism and does not satisfy the PCBU’s primary duty of care to provide a safe work environment or conduct proper risk assessments.

Takeaway: Effective WHS risk management for ergonomic hazards requires a task-specific analysis and meaningful consultation with the workers performing the tasks.

Correct: In the Australian WHS framework, effective incident investigation must go beyond immediate physical causes to identify systemic root causes, such as inadequate training, poor maintenance schedules, or flawed procurement processes. Furthermore, WHS legislation mandates consultation with workers and their Health and Safety Representatives (HSRs) on matters affecting their health and safety, including the outcomes of incident investigations to prevent recurrence.

Incorrect: Focusing solely on individual worker error is a ‘blame-culture’ approach that fails to address the underlying systemic issues that allow errors to occur. Limiting the scope to physical equipment ignores the hierarchy of controls and organizational factors like work pressure or supervision. While legal privilege is a consideration in some contexts, delegating the entire process to avoid regulatory transparency contradicts the PCBU’s primary duty of care and the objective of improving safety outcomes through open consultation.

Takeaway: A robust incident investigation must identify systemic root causes through worker consultation to satisfy legislative duties and prevent future occurrences.

Correct: Under the Australian WHS Act, a Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking (PCBU) has a legal duty to consult with workers who are, or are likely to be, directly affected by a matter relating to work health or safety. This includes when identifying hazards, assessing risks, and making decisions about ways to eliminate or minimize those risks. Involving Health and Safety Representatives (HSRs) and the workers themselves in the risk assessment process ensures that the practical implications of the new data protection protocols are understood and addressed, fulfilling the legislative requirement for meaningful consultation.

Incorrect: Providing a digital acknowledgement of a policy is a form of information dissemination or training, but it does not constitute consultation, which requires a two-way exchange of information. Delegating the assessment solely to the IT department fails to address the PCBU’s duty to consult with the workers performing the tasks and ignores the multi-disciplinary nature of WHS risk management. While an external audit provides a level of verification, it cannot replace the mandatory legal requirement to consult with the internal workforce during the risk management process.

Takeaway: Meaningful consultation with workers and their representatives is a mandatory legislative requirement when introducing changes that affect workplace health and safety, regardless of the technical or security-related nature of the change.

Correct: Under the Australian WHS framework, specifically the Model WHS Act and the Code of Practice for Risk Management, a Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking (PCBU) must consult with workers and their Health and Safety Representatives (HSRs) when identifying hazards. The process must be systematic and follow the hierarchy of controls, which mandates that the PCBU must first attempt to eliminate the risk, or if that is not possible, minimize it through substitution, isolation, or engineering controls before relying on administrative controls or PPE.

Incorrect: Reviewing manufacturer data and issuing a SWMS is a necessary step but is insufficient on its own as it lacks the mandatory consultation with workers and the site-specific hazard identification required by law. Delegating the entire process to an external consultant fails the PCBU’s non-delegable duty to consult with their own workers who are directly affected by the change. Implementing a pilot program to record incidents is a reactive approach; WHS legislation requires a proactive assessment to identify and control risks before workers are exposed to them.

Takeaway: Effective WHS risk management requires a proactive, consultative approach that involves workers and strictly adheres to the hierarchy of controls to ensure the highest level of protection.

Correct: Under the Australian WHS Act, consultation is not just a best practice but a legal requirement for PCBUs. An approach that fosters genuine participation ensures that safety culture is built on the practical knowledge of workers and their commitment to the system. Meaningful engagement leads to better hazard identification and more sustainable behavioral change compared to top-down or punitive measures.

Incorrect: Focusing on disciplinary frameworks often creates a culture of fear and under-reporting, which masks underlying risks. Performance-based bonuses tied to injury rates are widely discouraged as they incentivize the concealment of incidents rather than the improvement of safety. Models that focus exclusively on individual worker actions often ignore systemic organizational failures and the hierarchy of controls, leading to a superficial safety culture.

Takeaway: A sustainable WHS culture is built on the foundation of worker consultation and active participation rather than punitive measures or injury-based incentives.

Correct: Under Section 27 of the WHS Act, officers have a positive, non-delegable duty to exercise due diligence. This includes taking reasonable steps to acquire and keep up-to-date knowledge of WHS matters, understanding the nature of the operations and the associated hazards, and ensuring the PCBU has and uses appropriate resources and processes to eliminate or minimize risks. In the context of a whistleblower report regarding psychological hazards, officers must go beyond having a policy and proactively verify that the risks are being managed and that the processes for responding to such information are effective.

Incorrect: The requirement for officers is to ensure that the PCBU has processes for receiving and considering information regarding incidents and hazards, but they are not legally required to personally conduct investigations. Providing financial compensation is a liability management or HR action and does not satisfy the proactive due diligence requirements of the WHS Act. Relying solely on an annual report without active verification or questioning fails the due diligence requirement to take reasonable steps to verify the provision and use of resources and processes; due diligence requires a proactive approach rather than passive reliance on high-level summaries.

Takeaway: Officers must exercise proactive due diligence by verifying that the PCBU has effective resources and processes in place to manage specific operational risks, rather than passively relying on general policies.

Correct: Under Section 46 of the Work Health and Safety Act, when multiple duty holders (PCBUs) have a duty for the same matter, they must consult, cooperate, and coordinate activities. In an outsourced data center scenario, the provider still holds a duty of care. Establishing a framework for joint inspections and sharing incident data ensures that both parties are actively identifying hazards and learning from near-misses, fulfilling the requirement for proactive risk management and coordination.

Incorrect: Relying on annual JSA submissions is reactive and fails to provide the timely hazard identification required for a dynamic work environment. Independent checklists without coordination lead to fragmented safety management and may miss hazards known only to the contractor. Contractual indemnity clauses are legally ineffective for transferring WHS duties; a PCBU cannot contract out of their primary duty of care or their statutory obligations to identify and manage risks.

Takeaway: Effective hazard identification in shared workplaces requires active consultation, cooperation, and coordination between all duty holders to ensure risks are identified and managed collectively.