This information from the Work Health and Safety Act 2020 (WHS Act) is designed to help Western Australian organisations and their associated workforces (including volunteers) understand WA’s work health and safety laws.
Competent person
A person who has acquired through training, qualification or experience the knowledge and skills to carry out the task. The definition of ‘competent person’ in the WHS Regulations prescribes specific requirements for some types for work such as diving and working with asbestos.
Control measure
An action taken to eliminate or minimise health and safety risks so far as is reasonably practicable. A hierarchy of control measures is set out in the WHS Regulations to assist duty holders to select the highest control measures reasonably practicable.
Note: The WHS Regulations also refer to a control measure as a risk control measure or a risk control.
Duty holder
Refers to any person who owes a work health and safety duty under the WHS Act including a person conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU), designer, manufacturer, importer, supplier, installer of products or plant used at work (upstream duty holders), WHS service provider, an officer and a worker. More than one person can have the same duty concurrently in which the duty is shared and duties cannot be transferred.
Health and safety committee (HSC)
A group established under the WHS Act that facilitates cooperation between a PCBU and workers to provide a safe place of work. At least half of the members of the committee must be workers who have not been nominated by the PCBU.
Learn more about health and safety committee.
Health and safety representative
A worker who has been elected by their work group under the WHS Act to represent them on health and safety matters.
Learn more about health and safety representatives.
Managing risk
This is a process set out in the WHS Regulations to eliminate health and safety risks so far as is reasonably practicable, or if this is not reasonably practicable, minimise the risks so far as is reasonably practicable.
It includes identifying hazards, assessing and implementing control measures, and reviewing and maintaining the control measures to ensure their ongoing effectiveness.
Mine operator
A mine operator is a person (including a partnership, syndicate or other association of persons) who:
- in relation to a mine where only exploration operations are being carried out — has overall control and supervision of the exploration operations at the mine and the exploration manager appointed for those operations; and
- otherwise is the proprietor, lessee, or occupier of a mine and who has overall control and supervision of the mine and mining operations at the mine.
Officer
An officer is defined within section 9 of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) other than each partner within a partnership. Broadly, an officer is a person who makes or participates in making decisions that affect the whole or a substantial part of the organisation’s activities. This does not include an elected member of a municipal council acting in that capacity or a minister of a state, territory or the Commonwealth.
An officer can also be an Officer of the Crown or a public corporation. This will be the case if they are a person who reports directly to the chief executive and makes or participates in making decisions that affect the whole, or a substantial part, of the business or an undertaking of the Crown or public authority.
Each partner within a partnership is not an officer, but a PCBU in their own right.
Learn more about officer responsibilities.
Person conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU)
A person conducting a business or undertaking alone or with others, whether or not for profit or gain. A PCBU can be a sole trader (for example, a self-employed person), each partner within a partnership, a company, an unincorporated association or government department of public corporation, including a municipal council.
A local government member acting in that capacity is not a PCBU.
A volunteer association that does not employ anyone is not a PCBU. If the association becomes an employer, it then becomes a PCBU for purposes of the WHS Act.
A strata company responsible for any common areas used only for residential purposes is not a PCBU. The exception is if it engages a worker as an employee.
Learn more about person conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU)
Plant
Includes any machinery, equipment, appliance, container, implement or tool, and any component or anything fitted or connected to these things.
Reasonably practicable
A guiding principle of the WHS Act is that all people are given the highest level of health and safety protection from hazards arising from work, so far as is reasonably practicable. The term ‘reasonably practicable’ means what could reasonably be done at a particular time to ensure health and safety measures are in place.
Learn how to determine what is reasonably practicable.
Structure
Anything that is constructed, whether fixed or moveable, temporary or permanent and includes buildings, masts, towers, framework, pipelines, transport infrastructure and underground works (shafts or tunnels). This also includes any component or part of a structure.
Substance
Any natural or artificial substance in the form of a solid, liquid, gas or vapour.
Supply
Supply and re-supply of a thing provided by way of sale, exchange, lease, hire or hire-purchase arrangement, whether as principal or agent.
Volunteer
A person who acts on a voluntary basis irrespective of whether they receive out of pocket expenses.
Learn more about volunteer and volunteer organisations at the workplace
Volunteer association
A group of volunteers working together for one or more community purposes, whether registered or not, that does not employ anyone to carry out work for the association.
Learn more about volunteer and volunteer organisations at the workplace.
WHS service provider
A person who conducts a business or undertaking that provides WHS services:
- to a person who conducts another business or undertaking; and
- that are to be used, or could reasonably be expected to be used, at, or in relation to, a workplace at which work is carried out for the other business or undertaking.
Learn more about WHS service providers.
WHS services
Services that relate to work health and safety. Exclusions from the definition include:
- services provided under the WHS Act by a WHS authority, a health and safety representative (or deputy) or a health and safety committee
- services provided under a corresponding WHS law by a person or body corresponding to a WHS authority, a health and safety representative (or deputy) or a health and safety committee
- emergency services provided by police officers, or other emergency services personnel, in situations where there is a serious risk to the health or safety of any individual
- services that are subject to legal professional privilege or that would be subject to legal professional privilege but for that privilege having been waived.
Learn more about Duty of persons conducting business or undertakings that provide services relating to work health and safety.
Worker
Any person who carries out work for a PCBU, including work as an employee, contractor, subcontractor, self-employed person, outworker, apprentice or trainee, work experience student, employee of a labour hire company placed with a host employer and volunteers.
Learn more about workers and others at the workplace.
Work group
A group of workers represented by an HSR who in many cases share similar work conditions (e.g. all the electricians in a factory, all people working a night shift, all people who work in the loading bay of a retail storage facility).
Workplace
Any place where a worker goes or is likely to be while work is carried out for a business or undertaking. This may include offices, factories, shops, construction sites, vehicles, ships, aircraft or other mobile structures on land or water such as offshore units and platforms that are not already covered under the Commonwealth’s offshore WHS laws.