Australia Machinery Safety

Across Australia all works health and safety laws require designers and manufacturers to ensure as far as is reasonably practicable that machinery is designed and manufactured to be without risks to health and safety and to provide adequate and up to date information about the machinery. Members of the supply chain have a positive obligation to follow the hazard identification and risk assessment process and provide the resulting safety information to purchasers. The Work health and safety Act & Work health and safety Regulations also contain details of specific hazard control measures required for certain types of plant (eg. ROPS on tractors) Workplace Health and Safety (WHS) Legislation in Australia is essentially a State & Territory responsibility. Each state has documents such as guide to machine saftey (NSW), Code of practice safetguarding of machinery and plant(WA), etc. to provide information to support supplier/owner to manage risks with using macinery. There is an underlying requirement in the WHS legislation that duty holders must be conscious of the existence and further development of “industry knowledge” relating to management of safety hazards and risks. Well-known examples of industry knowledge are Australian and International Standards. Important Australia standard relating to plant (machinery) include e.g. AS 4024 (series) 'Safety of machinery' and AS 1657 'Fixed platforms, walkways, stairways & ladders – design & construction' Ask how we can help you evaluating compliance with Australian work health and safety regulations !