The terms an inspector will use.
In plain English.

Due diligence (officer)

s27 due diligence

Officer due diligence is the personal duty owed by officers (directors, CEOs, executives) under s27 of the model WHS Act. It is six steps: acquire knowledge, understand operations, ensure resources, ensure incident response, ensure compliance with duties, and verify all the above.

HRCW

High-Risk Construction Work

High-Risk Construction Work is a defined list of 18 construction activities under WHS Regulation 291 that legally require a Safe Work Method Statement (SWMS) before the work can start. Examples include working at height, in confined spaces, with asbestos, on or near energised electrical installations, and demolition.

Industrial manslaughter

Industrial manslaughter is a state-level criminal offence covering workplace deaths caused by negligent or reckless conduct of a PCBU or senior officer. It now exists in Vic (2020), Qld (2017), ACT (2003), NT (2019), SA (2024), WA (2022) — with NSW the only mainland holdout as of mid-2026.

Notifiable incident

A notifiable incident is a death, serious injury or illness, or dangerous incident that a PCBU must report to the WHS regulator immediately (and in writing within 48 hours). The list is defined in ss35–37 of the model WHS Act and the site must be preserved until an inspector arrives or directs otherwise.

Officer

An officer for WHS purposes is a director, secretary, or person who participates in decisions that affect a substantial part of the business — adopted from the Corporations Act 2001 definition. Officers carry the personal due-diligence duty under s27 of the model WHS Act.

PCBU

Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking

PCBU stands for Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking — the primary duty-holder under model WHS legislation in Australia. It is broader than “employer”: a PCBU can be a company, a sole trader, a partnership or an unincorporated association, and the duty applies whether or not workers are paid.

Primary duty of care

The primary duty of care (model WHS Act s19) is a PCBU's overarching duty to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety of workers and other persons at the workplace. It is the foundation duty from which most other WHS obligations flow.

Reasonably practicable

Reasonably practicable is the qualifier on almost every WHS duty: it means doing what can reasonably be done in the circumstances, having regard to the likelihood of harm, the degree of harm, what is known about the hazard, the availability and suitability of controls, and the cost of controls. Cost is always the last factor.

Worker

Under the model WHS Act (s7), a "worker" is anyone who carries out work in any capacity for a PCBU — employees, contractors and their workers, labour-hire staff, apprentices, trainees, work-experience students, volunteers and the PCBU itself if it is an individual doing work. The definition is deliberately broad.

Workplace

A "workplace" under the model WHS Act (s8) is any place where work is carried out for a business or undertaking. This includes vehicles, vessels, aircraft, and any place workers go or are likely to be in the course of work — not just a fixed site.

JSA

Job Safety Analysis

A Job Safety Analysis is a step-by-step task-level risk assessment: break the job into steps, identify the hazards for each step, decide the controls, assign responsibilities. JSAs are not legally named in the WHS Regulations but are a near-universal industry practice for crew-level pre-task analysis.

JSEA

Job Safety and Environmental Analysis

A Job Safety and Environmental Analysis is a JSA extended to cover environmental risks (spills, emissions, contaminated land disturbance, biodiversity impacts) in addition to safety risks. JSEAs are common where an ISO 14001 environmental management system is in place alongside ISO 45001.

Risk assessment

A risk assessment is the structured analysis of a hazard: what is the hazard, who could be harmed and how, what is the likelihood and consequence, what controls reduce the risk, and what residual risk remains. The output drives the hierarchy-of-control decisions and the SWMS / SOP / register entries that flow from it.

SOP

Standard Operating Procedure

A Standard Operating Procedure is a step-by-step controlled procedure for a recurring task. SOPs are the repository of "how we do this" knowledge; a SWMS, JSA or toolbox talk often references the relevant SOP rather than restating its content.

SWMS

Safe Work Method Statement

A Safe Work Method Statement is a written document required by WHS Regulation 299 for any high-risk construction work. It identifies the work, the hazards, the controls (in hierarchy-of-control order), the residual risks, and the person responsible. The principal contractor must keep it for the life of the project.

Toolbox talk

TBT · Pre-start meeting

A toolbox talk is a short on-site safety briefing — typically 5–15 minutes before a shift — covering a specific hazard, control or change. It is the most regular consultation touchpoint between supervisors and workers and is logged with attendees and topic so it forms an audit trail of consultation.

ALARP

As Low As Reasonably Practicable

ALARP — As Low As Reasonably Practicable — is the principle that risk must be reduced as far as is reasonably practicable, applying hierarchy-of-control reasoning, and only stopping when further control would be grossly disproportionate to the residual risk. It is the operational expression of the s18 reasonably-practicable test.

Hazard register

A hazard register is the live list of known hazards in a workplace, with their risk rating, current controls, residual risk, responsible person and review date. It is the central register that feeds risk assessments, SWMS, training matrices and inspection schedules.

Hierarchy of control

The hierarchy of control is the rank-ordered preference for risk treatment: eliminate the hazard, then substitute, then isolate, then engineer, then administer, then PPE as a last resort. Higher controls reduce risk more reliably than lower controls because they do not depend on people behaving correctly under stress.

ISO 45001

ISO 45001:2018

ISO 45001:2018 is the international standard for occupational health and safety management systems (OHSMS). It uses the Annex SL high-level structure shared with ISO 9001 and ISO 14001, organised around Plan-Do-Check-Act and 10 clauses from context (4) through improvement (10).

ISO 45003

ISO 45003:2021

ISO 45003:2021 is the international guidance standard for managing psychosocial risk within an ISO 45001 OHSMS. It is a guideline (not a certifiable standard) and was the first global ISO standard to address psychosocial hazards in occupational safety terms.

Lead vs lag indicator

Lead indicators measure activities that prevent harm (inspections completed, training delivered, near-miss reports closed-out, hazard-register reviews). Lag indicators measure harm after it occurred (TRIFR, LTIFR, days lost). A mature WHSMS uses both, weighted toward lead because lag is reactive.

Risk matrix

A risk matrix multiplies likelihood (how often the harm might occur) by consequence (how bad it would be if it did) to produce a risk rating — typically Low / Medium / High / Extreme. The 5×5 matrix is the dominant format in Australian WHS practice.

Competency

Competency is verified ability to do a task safely — typically demonstrated through training (qualification or licence) plus practical assessment. Competency is the evidence behind "trained and assessed", a phrase that recurs through WHS regulations.

Fit for work

Fit for work means a worker is in a physical and mental state to do their work safely — free from impairment by fatigue, alcohol, drugs, illness or injury. The fitness-for-work duty sits on both the PCBU (to provide a system) and the worker (to declare).

Induction

An induction is the structured introduction of a worker (or contractor) to a workplace before they start work: site rules, emergency procedures, hazards, PPE, supervisory chain, sign-on. Induction is a precondition for being allowed to work on most managed sites.

Permit to work

PTW

A permit to work is a formal authorisation document for a specific high-risk task in a specific location for a defined time window. Hot work, confined-space entry, energised electrical work, working at height, excavation and isolation/lockout typically require a PTW.

Take 5

SLAM · STOP

A Take 5 is a 5-step pre-task hazard check performed by a worker before starting work: Stop, Think, Look, Assess, Act / Manage. It is a worker-level rapid risk assessment used between a JSA and the actual physical work, often captured on a card or app.

Training matrix

A training matrix is the cross-tabulation of workers (rows) against required training and competencies (columns), with completion dates, expiry dates and gap status in the cells. It is the operational evidence behind "trained and assessed".

Critical incident

CISD · CISM · PFA

A critical incident is a workplace event with the potential to cause significant psychological distress — fatality, serious injury witnessed by colleagues, armed robbery, assault, near-miss to self or co-worker, large-scale evacuation. The PCBU's response triggers Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) processes including EAP activation, structured debrief and return-to-work follow-up.

EAP

Employee Assistance Program

An Employee Assistance Program is a confidential counselling and short-term-support service provided to workers (and often their immediate family) by an external provider. EAP access is the most common mental-health control in Australian workplaces and a near-baseline requirement for psychosocial risk management.

MHFA

Mental Health First Aid

A Mental Health First Aider is a trained worker who can recognise mental-health issues in colleagues and connect them to appropriate support. The standard course is Mental Health First Aid Australia's 12-hour Standard MHFA, with certifications valid for 3 years.

Positive duty (sexual harassment)

SDA s47C

The "positive duty" is the obligation under s47C of the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth) for employers to take reasonable and proportionate measures to eliminate sex discrimination, sexual harassment, sex-based harassment, hostile workplace environments and victimisation. It is proactive — duty-holders must prevent harm, not just respond after it.

Psychosocial hazard

A psychosocial hazard is a hazard that may cause psychological or physical harm and arises from how work is designed, organised and managed, or from the social context of work. Examples include high job demands, low job control, poor support, role conflict, exposure to traumatic events, harassment and bullying.

Audit programme

An audit programme is the planned schedule of internal audits across a WHSMS for a defined cycle (typically annual). ISO 45001 Clause 9.2 requires the audit programme to plan, establish, implement and maintain an audit programme — coverage of every clause across the cycle, by competent auditors, with findings driving CAPA.

CAPA

Corrective and Preventive Action

Corrective and Preventive Action is the structured response to a non-conformity or incident: investigate root cause, define corrective action (fix this) and preventive action (stop it recurring elsewhere), assign accountable owners and due dates, and verify the action was effective. ISO 45001 Cl 10.2 governs the workflow.

Consultation

s47 consultation · Worker consultation

Consultation is the model WHS Act s47 duty for PCBUs to consult workers (so far as is reasonably practicable) on matters affecting their health and safety. The duty is positive, structured and ongoing — not a one-off briefing.

Contractor prequalification

Contractor prequalification is the pre-engagement check that a contractor has the licences, insurances, certifications, training and safety record required by the principal. It is the upstream control on s46 consultation, cooperation and coordination duties between PCBUs sharing a site.

Incident investigation

ICAM · RCA · Root cause analysis

Incident investigation is the structured analysis of how and why an incident occurred — including root cause(s), contributing factors and systemic gaps — so that corrective action can prevent recurrence. ICAM (Incident Cause Analysis Method) is the dominant model in Australian heavy industry.

Management review

A management review is the formal periodic (typically annual) review by top management of the WHSMS to ensure its continuing suitability, adequacy and effectiveness. ISO 45001 Cl 9.3 specifies 10 mandatory inputs and 5 mandatory outputs.

NCR

Non-Conformity Report · Non-Conformance Report

A Non-Conformity Report records a failure to meet a defined requirement — a WHS rule, an ISO 45001 clause, an internal procedure, a regulator condition. NCRs feed the CAPA register and are the primary lag indicator of system performance.

ACC (NZ)

Accident Compensation Corporation

ACC is the Accident Compensation Corporation — New Zealand's no-fault, universal, public accident-injury compensation scheme. ACC covers everyone in NZ for personal injury by accident regardless of fault, replacing the right to sue for personal injury damages in most cases.

Return to work

RTW

Return-to-work is the structured pathway by which an injured or ill worker resumes work, typically through staged suitable duties under a written RTW plan. Each Australian state has its own statutory scheme (e.g. NSW SIRA, Vic WorkSafe, Qld WorkCover) with employer obligations including timelines, designated coordinators and plan reviews.

Suitable duties

Suitable duties are work tasks an injured or ill worker can do during recovery, matched to their current medical capacity. Employers must offer suitable duties so far as is reasonably practicable; they are the primary mechanism by which a graduated return-to-work occurs.

ACOP

Approved Code of Practice

An Approved Code of Practice is a code approved by the responsible Minister under HSWA s222 and providing practical guidance on how to comply with the Act and Regulations. ACOPs are not strictly binding but a court may take compliance (or non-compliance) into account when deciding whether a duty has been met.

Certified handler (NZ)

A Certified Handler is a person certified under the HSW (Hazardous Substances) Regulations 2017 (reg 6.4–6.9) to manage specific classes of hazardous substances. Certification is class-specific and time-limited and is the NZ analogue of AU dangerous-goods licensing.

HSWA

Health and Safety at Work Act 2015

HSWA 2015 — the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 — is the primary New Zealand WHS statute, in force since 4 April 2016. It replaced the Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992 and introduced the PCBU framework largely parallel to the Australian model WHS regime, with WorkSafe NZ as the regulator.