Plant and equipment registration on Australian residential builds

What it is

Plant registration is the requirement under the model Work Health and Safety Regulations to register certain higher-risk items of plant with the WHS regulator before they are used at a workplace. There are two layers. Design registration applies to the design of an item of plant and is done once for each design by the designer, importer or supplier. Item registration applies to the individual piece of plant and is renewed periodically by the person with management or control of the plant, usually the owner.

On a residential build the registration question comes up most often with cranes, elevating work platforms, scaffold and prefabricated structures. Many of these items will be hired in. The hire company is responsible for ensuring the plant has current design and item registration, but the builder as PCBU still has a duty to verify it before the plant is brought to site.

Who has the duty

Schedule 5 of the model WHS Regulations lists the items of plant whose design must be registered. Schedule 5 also lists the items whose individual plant must be registered. The duty to register the design sits with the designer, manufacturer, importer or supplier. The duty to register the item sits with the person with management or control of the plant at the workplace.

On a residential site this usually means the hire company has registered the design and the item, and the principal contractor verifies it. Verification is a documented step. Asking for the registration certificate before the plant is delivered, photographing the plate on the plant when it arrives and recording both in the site file is the minimum defensible process.

What requires registration

The items most commonly relevant on a residential build are:

• Tower cranes, mobile cranes with a rated capacity above 10 tonnes, vehicle loading cranes with a rated capacity of 10 tonne metres or more, and bridge or gantry cranes with powered movement
• Building maintenance units and elevating work platforms with a boom length of 11 metres or more
• Concrete placing booms
• Prefabricated scaffold and prefabricated formwork as a design only registration item, the individual items are not registered
• Lifts, escalators and moving walks
• Pressure equipment including boilers and pressure vessels above the threshold in AS 4343

Excavators, skid steers, telehandlers, dump trucks and ride-on rollers are plant and have their own design and operational duties but they do not require registration. Their operators may still need a high-risk work licence depending on the configuration.

State variations

The model WHS Regulations are mirrored in NSW, Queensland, the ACT, the Northern Territory, South Australia, Tasmania and Western Australia. Victoria operates a parallel scheme under the Occupational Health and Safety Regulations 2017 and uses different application forms but the substantive list of registrable plant is the same.

Plant design registration is national in effect. A design registered in one jurisdiction is recognised in every other Australian jurisdiction. Item registration is jurisdictional and renewed in the state where the plant is based, with renewal periods commonly one to five years depending on the plant type.

High-risk work licences

Operating registered plant often also requires a high-risk work licence. The licence and the plant registration are separate items but both are checked on a residential site. The most common licences on a residential build are basic and intermediate rigging, basic and intermediate scaffolding, dogging, slewing mobile crane up to a stated capacity, and boom-type elevating work platform 11 metres or more. The principal contractor must verify the licence is current and matches the work being done.

What an audit looks for

When SafeWork audits plant on a residential site they ask four questions. First, is the plant of a type that requires design and item registration. Second, is the design registration current and is the registration number visible on the plant or its plate. Third, is the item registration current and is the certificate on site or available within a reasonable time. Fourth, does the operator hold the relevant high-risk work licence. A gap in any one of those is grounds for a prohibition notice on the plant.

TradeLens application

TradeLens tracks plant on site against a register that captures design registration number, item registration expiry, last inspection date and operator licence. Plant arriving without a current registration is flagged before it is used. The compliance ledger gives the builder a single record to produce on audit.