HRCW
Also known as: 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.
Legal context
WHS Regulation 291 defines high-risk construction work by listing 18 categories: risk of falls from 2 metres or more, work on telecommunication towers, demolition, asbestos handling, structural alterations or repairs that require temporary support, work in or near confined spaces, work in or near trenches or shafts deeper than 1.5 metres, tunnel work, work involving explosives, work on or near pressurised gas distribution mains, work on or near chemical, fuel or refrigerant lines, work on or near energised electrical installations or services, work in an area that may have a contaminated or flammable atmosphere, tilt-up or precast concrete work, work on or adjacent to roadways or railways used by traffic other than pedestrian, work in areas with movement of powered mobile plant, work in temperature extremes, and diving work.
Practical use
If any of these 18 activities are present, a SWMS is mandatory and the principal contractor must keep it for the life of the project plus statutory retention. A PCBU that starts HRCW without a SWMS is exposed to immediate prohibition notices and Category 2 / 3 offences.
Regulator references
The binding-law and regulator-guidance sources behind this term.
Common questions
Does HRCW apply outside construction?
No. HRCW is a construction-work category defined in Chapter 6 of the model WHS Regulations. Similar high-risk activities outside construction may still trigger licence, permit or risk-assessment duties — but they are not "HRCW" by definition.
Is "working at 2 metres" the same as "working at heights"?
Not quite. WHS Reg 291 captures construction work where there is a risk of a person falling 2 metres or more. The Managing the Risk of Falls Code of Practice covers fall management more broadly, including for falls less than 2 metres where the risk is significant.
Do I need a separate SWMS for each HRCW activity?
You can combine multiple HRCW activities into one SWMS for a project, provided each activity is addressed with its specific hazards, controls and PPE. Many principal contractors prefer one SWMS per discrete activity for clarity at sign-on.
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Related terms
SWMS
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.
JSA
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.
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.
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.
Platform pillars
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