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What law applies

In order to understand the workplace health and safety requirements for the rural industry, and your obligations under the law you must consider and understand relevant legislation and codes of practice.

General health and safety obligations
What you must do
Specific regulations and codes for rural

General health and safety obligations

To understand your obligations and safety requirements you must be familiar with the:
Workplace Health and Safety Act 1995 (PDF, 766 KB) which imposes obligations on people at workplaces to ensure workplace health and safety. The Workplace Health and Safety Act 1995 also helps you to meet your workplace health and safety obligations through:

The Workplace Health and Safety Regulation 2008 which describes what must be done to prevent or control certain hazards which cause injury, illness or death
codes of practice, which are designed to give practical advice about ways to manage exposure to common risks. In particular, the Risk Management Code of Practice 2007 should be read in conjunction with information on PPE.

Every Queensland employer must have workers’ compensation insurance. Most employers insure with WorkCover Queensland, while a small number of large organisations have their own insurance. This insurance coverage ensures that employees injured at work receive financial support.

What you must do

It is a requirement of the Workplace Health and Safety Act 1995 that risks must be assessed and control measures then implemented and reviewed to prevent or minimise exposure to the risks.

If the Workplace Health and Safety Regulation 2008 describes how to prevent or minimise a risk at your workplace you must do what the regulation says. If there is a code of practice that describes how to prevent or minimise a risk at your workplace you must do what the code says or adopt and follow another way that gives the same level of protection against the risk.

If there is no regulation or code of practice about a risk at your workplace you must choose an appropriate way to manage exposure to the risk. People must, where there is no regulation or code of practice about a risk, take reasonable precautions and exercise proper diligence against the risk.

See the Risk Management Code of Practice 2007 for further information.

Specific regulations and codes for rural

The following codes of practice and guides have been developed for people in the rural industry:

Please note, from 18 November 2004 the Workplace Health and Safety Act 1995 was amended so that:

all advisory standards that were in force on that day were continued as codes of practice and now expire 10 years after their commencement; and
all existing industry codes of practice that were in force on that day now expire 10 years after their commencement.

Last updated 27 August 2008

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