Focus area 1: businesses are best placed to understand and manage their risks
We are seeking to understand how businesses and organisations make their decisions about health and safety and the reasons behind these decisions.
On this page
The HSW Act places the primary duty of care on a business or organisation to ensure the health and safety of workers and others affected by the work of the business or organisation. This is based on the principle that those who create the risks are best placed to understand and manage those risks.
Businesses that work together may have the same health and safety duties (referred to as ‘overlapping duties’). For example, multiple businesses may have overlapping duties in a shared workplace such as a port. Duties can also overlap in a contracting chain, where contractors and subcontractors provide services to a head contractor or client and don’t necessarily share the same workplace.
The HSW Act also places a duty on businesses that are ‘upstream’ in the supply chain (eg, engineers, manufacturers, importers, and suppliers) to ensure that the machinery and equipment that they supply is safe to use.
Questions
9. Thinking about just the key actions your business or organisation takes to manage health and safety risks to its workers and others affected by its work:
a). what are these actions?
b). why does it take these actions?
c). do you think these actions are reasonable? (Please explain your answer.)
d). do you think these actions are effective in managing health and safety risks? (Please explain your answer.)
10. How well does your business or organisation understand its work health and safety obligations?
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very well
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quite well
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not that well
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not at all well
a). If you answered, “not that well” or “not at all well”, what do you think would help you to understand?
11. Thinking about just the key actions the business or organisation takes:
a). about how much would it cost per year to comply with your health and safety obligations? (If you are unable to estimate an annual cost, can you give some examples of spending to meet your obligations?)
b). how much time does your business or organisation spend on health and safety?
c). for workers, how much time do you spend on health and safety?
12. Where your business has overlapping duties with other businesses, what has been your experience in working together to manage health and safety risks? Think about clarity of roles, how you share duties, what processes you put in place.