Over 70 common Health and Safety terms and their definitions.

The following is a glossary of common health and safety terms and definitions used in Australian Health and Safety

The Model Legislation contains many terms and definitions with most defined in the ‘Dictionary’ of the specific legislation. Some of the important definitions are from Safe Work Australia, being

• • What is discriminatory, coercive or misleading conduct
  • What is the meaning of reasonably practicable
  • What are the types of Incidents that need to be Notified under the Model Legislation

The remainder of these Definitions expand on the health and safety terms that have become acronyms and well established in our lexicon when discussing health and safety.

• ACD – Asbestos-contaminated dust or debris
• ACM – Asbestos containing material
• Administrative control – A method of work, a process or a procedure designed to minimise risk, but does not include an engineering control, or the use of personal protective equipment.
• Airborne contaminant – A contaminant in the form of a fume, mist, gas, vapour or dust, and includes micro-organisms.
• Carcinogen – A substance or mixture that causes or is suspected of causing cancer.
• Code of Practice – Practical guides to achieving the standards of health, safety and welfare required under the WHS Act and the WHS Regulations in a jurisdiction. To have legal effect in a jurisdiction a model Code of Practice must be approved as a code of practice in that jurisdiction. To determine if a model Code of Practice has been approved in a particular jurisdiction, check with the relevant WHS regulator. Under a WHS Act in a jurisdiction, approved codes of practice are admissible in court proceedings. Courts may regard an approved code of practice as evidence of what is known about a hazard, risk or control and may rely on the code in determining what is reasonably practicable in the circumstances to which the code relates. For more information what is a Code of Practice please read this blog.
• Contractors – Workers who work under contract, including subcontractors and those who work for contractors and subcontractors.
• Control measure – An action taken to eliminate or minimise health and safety risks so far as is reasonably practicable. A hierarchy of control measures is set out in the WHS Regulations to assist duty holders to select the highest control measures reasonably practicable.
• Danger – (under the GHS) is a signal word on a label or safety data sheet that is used to indicate the relative level of severity of a hazard; Danger is used for more severe or significant hazards.
• Designer – Designs products, including plant, substances and structures.
• Duty Holder – A duty holder refers to any person who owes a work health and safety duty under the WHS Act including a person conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU), designer, manufacturer, importer, supplier, installer of products or plant used at work (upstream duty holders), an officer and workers. More than one person can concurrently have the same duty in which case the duty is shared. Duties cannot be transferred.
• Flammability category – A chemicals flammability category is based on how easily under normal conditions that the chemical will ignite.
• GHS – Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals
• Hazard – A situation or thing that has the potential to harm a person.
• Hazardous chemicals – Solids, liquids or gases listed in the GHS that can harm a person’s health.
• Hierarchy of Control – The hierarchy of risk control shows ways of controlling risks, ranked from the highest level of protection and reliability to the lowest.
• High risk work licence – Required for certain types of work, such as operating cranes and forklifts.
• HSC Health and safety committee – A consultative body established under the model WHS Act. The committee’s functions include facilitating co-operation between workers and the person conducting a business or undertaking to ensure worker’s health and safety at work, and assisting to develop work health and safety standards, rules and procedures for the workplace.
• HSR Health and safety representative – A worker who has been elected by a work group under the model WHS Act to represent them on health and safety issues.
• Illness – A disease, or period of sickness, that affects the body or mind.
• Importers – Someone who brings goods or services into the country for sale.
• Inspector – a person appointed under the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 to monitor and enforce compliance with NSW WHS laws. They can enter any premises they have reason to believe is a place of work.
• LTI – Lost time injury: A lost-time injury is defined as an occurrence that resulted in a fatality, permanent disability or time lost from work of one day/shift or more.
• LTIFR – Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate Lost-time injury frequency rates refer to the number of lost-time injuries within a given accounting period, relative to the total number of hours worked in that period. LTIFR is a proxy measurement for safety performance.
• Mental health – A state of wellbeing in which every individual copes with the normal stresses of life, works productively and fruitfully, and contributes to their community.
• MHF Major hazard facility – a business location that exceeds the levels listed in the WHS Regulation for very large quantities of particularly dangerous chemicals.
• Model WHS Act, Model Work Health and Safety Act – The model WHS Act forms the basis of the WHS Acts that have been implemented in most jurisdictions across Australia. The main object of the Act is to provide for a balanced and nationally consistent framework to secure the health and safety of workers and workplaces.
• Model WHS Regulation Model Work Health and Safety Regulation – The model WHS Regulations set out detailed requirements to support the duties in the model WHS Act.
• MSD – Musculoskeletal disorder.
• Musculoskeletal – Relating to muscles and to the skeleton.
• Near miss – An occurrence that might have led to an injury or illness, danger to someone’s health, and/or damage to property or the environment.
• NOHSC – National Occupational Health and Safety Commission Since renamed to the Australian Compensation Council, Now Safe Work Australia.
• Notifiable – An incident that is required, under the model WHS Act, to be notified to regulators. Only the most serious safety incidents are intended to be notifiable, and they trigger requirements to preserve the incident site pending further direction from the regulator. These include the death of a person, a serious injury or illness or a dangerous incident. Safe Work Australia receives information from jurisdictions on all notifiable fatalities and publishes monthly and annual summaries of this information.
• Officer – An officer within the meaning of section 9 of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cwth) other than each partner within a partnership. Broadly, an officer is a person who makes, or participates in making, decisions that affect the whole, or a substantial part, of the organisation’s activities. Each partner within a partnership is not an officer but a PCBU in their own right. Under the model WHS Act, an officer must exercise due diligence to ensure compliance by the PCBU with its health and safety obligations.
• OHS Occupational Health and Safety – Term now replaced with WHS Work Health and Safety.
• PCBU – Person conducting a business or undertaking. The model WHS Act places the primary duty of care on the PCBU. The term PCBU is an umbrella concept used to capture all types of working arrangements or structures. A PCBU can be a: company; unincorporated body or association; sole trader or self-employed person. Individuals who are in a partnership that is conducting a business will individually and collectively be a PCBU.
• Person with management or control of a workplace – The person with management or control of a workplace must ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that the workplace, the means of entering and exiting the workplace and anything arising from the workplace are without risks to the health and safety of any person.
• Plant – Includes any machinery, equipment, appliance, container, implement or tool, and any component or anything fitted or connected to these things.
• Policy – A definite course of action adopted as expedient or from other considerations.
• PPE – Personal protective equipment. Equipment used to protect someone from hazards in the workplace, such as helmets, boots, gloves, goggles, aprons and sunscreen.
• RCCBs – Residual-current circuit breakers.
• RCDs – Residual-current devices.
• Regulation Impact Statement – A Regulation Impact Statement (RIS) is a tool used by governments, when introducing or abolishing regulation, to assess the likely impact of viable options against the default position of no change in a way that is transparent and accountable.
• Risk – The possibility that harm (death, injury or illness) might occur when exposed to a hazard.
• Risk assessment – Evaluating the probability and consequence of injury or illness arising.
• Risk control – Taking action to eliminate health and safety risks so far as is reasonably practicable, and if that is not possible, minimising the risks so far as is reasonably practicable. Eliminating a hazard will also eliminate any risks associated with that hazard.
• Risk management – Involves hazard identification, risk assessment and risk control.
• Risks – The possibility that harm (death, injury or illness) might occur when exposed to a hazard.
• Safety Consultant – a professional person qualified and certified by an accreditation body with current knowledge and skills relating to WHS Compliance.
• SDS – Safety Data Sheet. A document prepared by the manufacturer, importer or supplier of a dangerous good, hazardous substance or other chemicals. Describes its properties and uses, including details about substance identity, chemical and physical properties, first aid treatment, and precautions for storage, use and safe handling.
• SMS – Safety Management System. A collection of documents that form the basis of proof relating to implementing a plan of action to eliminate or reduce levels of risk in a business. For more information on Safety Management Systems read this article.
• Structure – Anything that is constructed, whether fixed or moveable, temporary or permanent, and includes buildings, masts, towers, framework, pipelines, transport infrastructure and underground words (shafts or tunnels). Also includes any component or part of a structure.
• Substance – Any natural or artificial substance whether in the form of a solid, liquid, gas or vapour.
• Supply – Supply and re-supply of a thing provided by way of sale, exchange, lease, hire or hire-purchase arrangement, whether as principal or agent.
• SWA – Safe Work Australia is a tripartite body made up of the Chair, Safe Work Australia Members and the Chief Executive Officer.
• SWMS – Safe Work Method Statement. A document that details the way a work task or process is to be completed. Outlines the hazards involved and includes a step-by-step guide on how to do the job safely.
• TRIFRs – Total recordable injury frequency rates.
• Volunteer – A person who acts on a voluntary basis regardless of whether they receive out of pocket expenses.
• Volunteer association – A group of volunteers working together for one or more community purposes where none of the volunteers, whether alone or jointly with any other volunteers, employs any person to carry out work for the volunteer association.
• Warning – (under the GHS) is a signal word on a label or safety data sheet that is used to indicate the relative level of severity of a hazard; Warning is used for less severe or significant hazards.
• WES – Workplace exposure standards.
• WHS – Work health and safety.
• WHS Duties – WHS laws require organisations that employ paid workers ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the physical and mental health and safety of workers, including volunteers.
• WHS Regulator – Manages compliance and enforcement of WHS laws; has enforcement and arbitration powers.
• WHSC – Work Health and Safety Committee.
• Work group – A group of workers represented by a HSR who in many cases share similar work conditions, for example all the electricians in a factory, all people on night shift, all people who work in the loading bay of a retail storage facility.
• Worker – Any person who carries out work for a PCBU, including work as an employee, contractor, subcontractor, self-employed person, outworker, apprentice or trainee, work experience student, employee of a labour hire company placed with a ‘host employer’ and volunteers.
• Workplace – Any place where work is carried out for a business or undertaking and includes any place where a worker goes, or is likely to be, while at work. This may include offices, factories, shops, construction sites, vehicles, ships, aircraft or other mobile structures on land or water.
• Workplace bullying – The repeated and unreasonable behaviour directed towards a worker or group of workers that creates a risk to health and safety.
• Workplace exposure standards – A workplace exposure standard for a particular chemical sets out the legal concentration limit of that chemical that must not be exceeded.

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