What does PCBU stand for?

Person conducting a business or undertaking. It is usually the business entity rather than an individual, and it holds the primary duty of care under HSWA 2015.

What is a notifiable event in New Zealand?

A death, a notifiable injury or illness, or a notifiable incident arising from work. Some events where nobody was injured are still notifiable because they exposed someone to serious risk.

Who is responsible for health and safety on a NZ site?

Duties are shared. The PCBU holds the primary duty, officers have due diligence duties, and workers must take reasonable care. More than one PCBU can hold duties for the same work.

Is PPE enough to control a hazard?

No. PPE sits at the bottom of the hierarchy of controls. Elimination comes first, and PPE supplements higher controls rather than replacing them.

What does so far as is reasonably practicable mean?

It weighs likelihood, severity, what is known about the risk and its controls, and their availability, with cost relevant only where grossly disproportionate to the risk.

Do workers have duties too?

Yes: reasonable care for themselves and others, compliance with reasonable instructions, and co-operation with reasonable policies. This does not reduce the PCBU's duty.

Does the Act cover people who are not workers?

Yes. The primary duty extends to other people put at risk by the work, which includes the public around a site. Public-facing edges are part of the site's risk assessment, not somebody else's problem.

Construction Site Safety Questions and Answers (HSWA 2015)

Terms like PCBU, reasonably practicable and notifiable event get used on site every day by people who could not define them under pressure. These are the definitions, and then the questions that test whether you can apply them.

The five terms every site assessment assumes you know.
Term	In one line
PCBU	Person conducting a business or undertaking, usually the business entity, holder of the primary duty
Officer	Someone with significant influence over the business, who owes a due diligence duty
Worker	Anyone carrying out work for a PCBU, including contractors and volunteers in scope
Notifiable event	A death, notifiable injury or illness, or notifiable incident arising from work
Reasonably practicable	What is reasonably able to be done, weighing risk, knowledge, controls and, last, cost

What is a PCBU under HSWA 2015?

A person conducting a business or undertaking. In practice this is almost always the business entity rather than a person, the company, the partnership, the sole trader's business. It is the duty holder with the primary duty of care.

What is the primary duty of care?

The PCBU must ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety of its workers, of workers it influences or directs, and of other people put at risk by the work. That last part catches out sites that think about staff but not about the public walking past.

What does reasonably practicable mean?

It weighs: how likely the hazard or risk is, how severe the harm would be, what the person knows or ought to know about the risk and ways of controlling it, the availability and suitability of those controls, and finally the cost, where cost counts only if it is grossly disproportionate to the risk.

Cost is last and heavily qualified. Any answer that treats expense as a general reason not to control a risk has misread the test.

What are a worker's duties?

Workers must take reasonable care for their own health and safety, take reasonable care that their acts or omissions do not adversely affect others, comply as far as reasonably able with reasonable instructions, and co-operate with reasonable policies.

Duties are shared, not transferred. A PCBU's duty does not disappear because a worker also has one.

What is a notifiable event?

A death, a notifiable injury or illness, or a notifiable incident arising from work. Notifiable incidents include certain exposures to serious risk, which is why an event where nobody was hurt can still be notifiable.

What must be reported to WorkSafe, and when?

Notifiable events must be notified to WorkSafe as soon as possible after becoming aware of them, with records kept. The site of a notifiable event generally must not be disturbed beyond what is needed to help the injured, make the site safe, or comply with an authority's direction.

Worked question 1: a collapse with nobody hurt

A scaffold collapses overnight. Nobody is on site and nobody is injured. Is this notifiable?

It should be assessed as a notifiable incident. The collapse of plant or a structure of that kind is exactly the sort of event the notifiable incident category is designed to capture, precisely because the absence of injury was luck rather than control. Answers that reason no injury, no notification have the logic backwards.

Worked question 2: two ways to control dust

Dust exposure could be controlled by wet-cutting, or by issuing respirators. Which does the Act point to?

Wet-cutting. It is an engineering control that reduces the hazard at source, and it sits above PPE in the hierarchy. Respirators are a supplement, not a substitute.

Worked question 3: whose worker, whose duty

A subcontractor's worker is injured. The main contractor says it is the subcontractor's problem. Is it?

No. Duties overlap. More than one PCBU can hold a duty in relation to the same work, and they must consult, co-operate and co-ordinate with each other. Contractual arrangements do not carve up statutory duties.

Worked question 4: the public outside the fence

A pedestrian is struck by material falling from a site onto the footpath. The site is fully compliant with its own worker protections. Does the Act apply?

Yes. The primary duty covers other people put at risk by the work, not only workers. This is the limb most often forgotten, and it is the one that makes public-facing edges, footpaths, neighbouring properties, shared access, part of the site's risk assessment rather than someone else's problem.

Worked question 5: an instruction you think is unsafe

A supervisor instructs you to carry out a task you believe is unsafe. What does the Act expect of you?

A worker's duty to comply extends to reasonable instruction, and the worker's own duty to take reasonable care for their health and safety does not switch off because someone senior gave the direction. The answer the assessment is looking for raises the concern rather than either silently complying or silently refusing.

What pattern runs through all five?

Each one tests whether you reason from the duty or from the situation. Site instinct says the injured worker's employer is responsible, that no injury means nothing to report, and that an instruction from above settles the matter. The Act says otherwise in all three cases, and the questions are built precisely where those two diverge.

These concepts also underpin temporary traffic management, where the road corridor is the workplace and the public is passing through it, and they sit behind the Site Safe Review of Understanding.

Construction site safety questions and answers (HSWA 2015)