Landscapers in Melbourne · the safety side
Hiring landscapers in Melbourne: what safe work looks like
A landscaping job can put a crew near overhead lines, up a tree, behind a chipper, over buried cables and out in the heat. This site, published by Dotto, sets out what Safe Work Australia, WorkSafe Victoria, Energy Safe Victoria and Before You Dig Australia say a safe job looks like, so you know what to look for in the crew you hire.
General information, not legal or safety advice for a particular job. Each guide lists its official sources at the foot of the page.
Five checks before work starts
- Trees near powerlinesEnergy Safe Victoria says only authorised powerline pruning contractors should prune trees touching or close to power lines. The guide sets out the three work zones in Safe Work Australia’s national guidance, and who may work in each.
- Tree work safetyWorkSafe Victoria says workers in the amenity tree industry are killed or seriously injured every year. The guide covers training, rescue plans, the drop zone under the tree, climbing and chainsaws.
- Chippers, saws, noise and liftingA business must make sure its machine operators have the skills, knowledge and experience to use them safely, in Safe Work Australia’s words. The guide covers woodchippers, stump grinders, protective gear, hearing and lifting.
- Before you digBefore You Dig Australia’s first tip for homeowners is to settle who will lodge the enquiry before any contractor starts digging. The guide covers what its free plans show, and what they leave out.
- Working in heat and sunSafe Work Australia says a business must make sure workers can get cool drinking water. The guide covers shade, the UV peak, breaks and what to do if someone becomes unwell.
Four official voices
Each guide names whose words it is using, because they carry different weight.
Safe Work Australia writes national guides and model codes of practice. It says it is not a regulator and cannot advise on work health and safety issues in a workplace, and points readers to their state or territory work health and safety authority. For its model codes, it asks readers to check with their regulator whether a code has legal effect where they are.
WorkSafe Victoria publishes guides and checklists for tree and garden work. One of its safety alerts sets out the employer’s duty under Victoria’s Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004: so far as is reasonably practicable, to provide and maintain a safe working environment, without risks to the health of employees, among others it names.
Energy Safe Victoria publishes an outdoor electrical safety guide, which covers working around the home, trees near powerlines and digging.
Before You Dig Australia runs a free service for plans of underground networks, and a Look Up and Live map for overhead powerlines.
Reading a duty and a recommendation
Safe Work Australia’s guide to the risks of tree work is precise about its own words: “must” marks a legal requirement that has to be complied with, and “should” marks a recommended course of action. The legal requirements it means are those of the model WHS Act and model WHS Regulations, and it says WHS laws are not the same across Australia. These guides keep that difference: a “Must” tag marks a legal requirement under the model WHS laws, as Safe Work Australia’s guide uses the word.
Two more lines from that guide explain why a crew’s paperwork matters. A duty holder must make sure the duties are met even if someone else has the same duty, and if they do not take the action themselves, they must make sure another duty holder does. And keeping to industry guidance and standards does not, on its own, mean a business is meeting its duties under the model WHS laws.
On the job, the guidance asks for an emergency plan, trained workers and the right protective equipment, and WorkSafe Victoria’s checklist asks whether workers are given site-specific information on the hazards, the risks and the controls in place. The five checks above show what each of those looks like in a garden.