The primary duty
A PCBU, any person conducting a business or undertaking, must ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety of workers and of others affected by its work. That duty extends to the contractors and subcontractors you engage and to their workers, not only to your own staff.
In practice this means satisfying yourself that the people you bring on are competent, licensed and insured for the work, before they start. A folder of certificates collected at onboarding is a record of a single moment, not of the day the work actually happened.
HSWA s.22"Reasonably practicable" is ongoing
The standard is not a one-time check. What is reasonably practicable includes keeping verification current as licences renew and insurance lapses. A reasonable system notices a policy about to expire and acts before it does, rather than discovering the gap after an incident.
HSWA s.34Overlapping duties
Where more than one PCBU shares responsibility for the same work, each must consult, cooperate and coordinate with the others, so far as is reasonably practicable. On a shared site that means documented inductions and a clear record of who was verified, by whom, and when.
After an incident
The five questions you will be asked
In a WorkSafe investigation, an insurer's claim review or a tribunal hearing, the questions are consistent. TrustPoint is built to answer each from the record:
- Were the contractor's documents current on the exact day of the incident?
- When did you last check, and what did you do when something was about to lapse?
- Was the individual worker inducted onto this specific site?
- Did the worker hold the licence class the restricted work required?
- Can you prove these records were not altered after the fact?
See how each feature maps to a specific obligation, or get access and start building the record today.
Full text: Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 · WorkSafe NZ. TrustPoint is a record-keeping tool and does not provide legal or health-and-safety advice.