Safety alert issued after spate of recent incidents lead to licence cancellations
Recent workplace incidents have resulted in SafeWork NSW action on high-risk work licences, including those related to the transport and logistics industries, the watchdog reported.
Licences have been suspended or cancelled after inspectors responded to incidents involving the operation of tower cranes, slewing mobile cranes, vehicle loading cranes, forklift trucks and scaffolding work.
Persons must be authorised to undertake high-risk work, SafeWork noted.
“High-risk work licence holders must ensure they take reasonable care for their own health and safety and must ensure that their acts or omissions do not adversely affect the health and safety of others,” the safety watchdog said.
“Inspectors have the power to immediately suspend a high-risk work licence where there is an imminent serious risk to the health and safety of any person.
“Several licence holders have recently had their licence suspended or cancelled resulting in them not being authorised to undertake high-risk work.”
Persons who have had their licence cancelled need to be retrained and reassessed as competent, and may also incur a disqualification period where they are unable to apply for another high-risk work licence.
Penalties apply for those undertaking high-risk work while their licence is suspended or cancelled.
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SafeWork outlined that high-risk work licence holders must:
- Only do work you are licenced to carry out – always have your licence available for inspection when undertaking high-risk work and only carry out high-risk work for the class of licence you hold
- Be familiar with the plant before you start – ensure that the plant is in a safe condition prior to operating and know all the operating controls and the limitations of the plant
- Operate the plant safely – operate the plant in a safe manner and within its rated capacity and capability and ensure you take reasonable care to carry out the high-risk work safely and competently
- Control access to/separation from the plant – prevent unauthorised or unintentional use of the plant and have adequate pedestrian separation and traffic control measures in place
- If an incident occurs – ensure that the plant is inspected by a suitably competent person before it is put back into service.