HSWA 2015: Sections 36, 22, 34

When they ask —
can you show
the record?

Every NZ business engaging contractors carries a legal duty of care under HSWA 2015. Whether you’re a builder with subbies on site or a property manager sending trades to a rental — the obligation is the same. The businesses that survive are the ones who had the record before anyone asked.

I’m in construction Builders & subcontractor managers
I manage property Landlords & property managers
Builder reviewing compliance records
The same obligation. Two different situations.

HSWA applies to everyone who engages contractors

Whether a worker is injured on a build site or a rental property, the law asks the same question: did you take reasonable steps to verify the contractor’s credentials before sending them?

Construction stream

Builders & principal contractors

Subcontractor insurance, LBP licences, H&S plans, site-specific inductions, and worker certifications. WorkSafe wants a timestamped record of every check, on every day, not just at onboarding.

WorkSafe will ask:
  • Were their documents current on the day of the incident?
  • Was the worker inducted to this specific site?
  • Did they hold the required licence class?
  • When did you last check? Show me the record.
Property stream

Landlords & property managers

Every maintenance contractor you direct to a property is a HSWA obligation. Electricians, plumbers, gasfitters, builders — you directed the work, which makes you the responsible PCBU.

The Tribunal and your insurer will ask:
  • Was the contractor insured at the time?
  • Were they registered for this type of work?
  • Did you verify before you sent them?
  • Was the Healthy Homes work done by a qualified trade?
In practice

When they ask — TrustPoint has the answers

When WorkSafe investigates, these are the five questions they ask. Businesses on TrustPoint can answer all five without leaving their desk.

  • ✓
    “Were their documents current at the time?”
    You pull the report. It shows every document, the expiry date as it stood on the day the worker arrived on site, and whether it was current. Timestamped. Tamper-evident.
    HSWA s.36, primary duty of care
  • ✓
    “When did you last check?”
    The system checked automatically. Alerts went out at 30, 14, 7, and 1 day before anything expired. Every alert, every status change, logged with a timestamp. Here’s the record.
    HSWA s.22, what “reasonably practicable” requires
  • ✓
    “Was the worker inducted to this specific site?”
    The worker scanned the site QR on arrival and acknowledged the site rules. The record shows the time, the site, and exactly what they confirmed. No scan, no entry.
    HSWA s.34, coordination on shared sites
  • ✓
    “Did the worker hold the required licences?”
    LBP licence class, status, and conditions reviewed and approved against the MBIE register. Site Safe passports and operator licences tracked per worker. The record shows what was confirmed at the time — not just what the worker claimed.
    HSWA s.36  ·  Building Act 2004 s.84
  • ✓
    “Can you prove none of this was changed after the fact?”
    The audit log is append-only. Nothing can be edited or deleted. Every entry links to the one before it; any change would be immediately visible. The record is exactly what it was on the day.
    Tamper-evident by design: not a policy, built into the architecture

When a Tenancy Tribunal complaint is filed or an insurer contests a claim, these are the questions you’ll face. TrustPoint means the answers are already there.

  • ✓
    “Was the contractor insured when they attended?”
    TrustPoint records the contractor’s current public liability insurance at the time of every job. The expiry date on the day they attended is in the record. Not "we assumed they were covered." Here’s the document and the timestamp.
    HSWA s.36, primary duty of care  ·  Landlord insurance exclusions for uninsured contractors
  • ✓
    “When did you last verify their details?”
    TrustPoint monitors every contractor’s documents automatically. Alerts fire at 30, 14, and 7 days before anything expires. The log shows every check, every status change, every notification sent — automatically, without you doing anything.
    HSWA s.22, what “reasonably practicable” requires: ongoing monitoring, not a one-time check
  • ✓
    “Was the tradesperson registered for this type of work?”
    EWRB registration for electricians, PGDB for plumbers and gasfitters, LBP for restricted building work — all reviewed and approved against their respective registers before the contractor is marked compliant. The record shows what was confirmed before you sent them.
    Residential Tenancies Act 1986  ·  Healthy Homes Standards  ·  Building Act 2004 s.84
  • ✓
    “Did you verify before you sent them?”
    Before the contractor attended, their status was READY on TrustPoint — all required documents current and approved. The timestamp on that status is in the audit log. You can show exactly what you checked and when, before any incident occurred.
    HSWA s.36: the duty of care applies before the work begins, not only after something goes wrong
  • ✓
    “Can you prove this record wasn’t created after the fact?”
    The audit log is append-only and hash-chained. Nothing can be edited or backdated. Every entry was written at the time it happened. This is a contemporaneous record, not a reconstruction — which is exactly what the Evidence Act requires.
    Evidence Act 2006: contemporaneous records carry substantially greater evidentiary weight

Government register checks. TrustPoint queries three MBIE government registers directly: the Companies Register, the LBP Register, and the Insolvency Register. Companies and Insolvency Registers are checked at account creation and refreshed weekly. LBP licences are reviewed and approved against the register at the point of upload.

Data sourced from MBIE government registers at time of check. Building Act 2004 / Companies Act 1993 / Insolvency Act 2006
Where the gaps usually are

How most businesses manage this — and where it leaves them

These methods work fine day-to-day. The gap surfaces when someone asks a specific question about a specific day.

The email folder
Certificates arrive at onboarding, filed away. No automated check of whether they’ve since expired. When WorkSafe or the Tribunal asks what the insurance status was on a specific day: that answer isn’t in the folder.
Cannot show documents were current at the time
TrustPoint: every document’s status is timestamped and logged automatically — on every day, not just when you look.
The spreadsheet
Expiry dates tracked manually, usually accurate. But when someone asks whether it was checked before that contractor attended the job on the day of the incident, there’s no automatic record of that check.
No record it was checked before they attended
TrustPoint: every status check is timestamped at the moment it happens — before the contractor attended, not after something went wrong.
The verbal assurance
“They’ve worked with us for years.” A long relationship doesn’t update an expiry date. Public liability renews annually. Licences lapse. H&S plans go stale. The relationship isn’t the record.
No paper trail. No record.
TrustPoint: automated expiry monitoring flags every renewal regardless of relationship history. The record exists whether you thought to check or not.

The question is never “did the business mean well?” It is: “Did they check? When? What did the document show at the time? Show me the record.”

The cost comparison

The cost of not having the record

ExposureCost
WorkSafe infringement notice (per notice)Up to $10,000
WorkSafe fine, individual or officer (maximum)$600,000 + up to 5 years imprisonment
WorkSafe fine, body corporate (maximum)$3,000,000
Average WorkSafe prosecution outcome (2024)$80,000–$250,000 + reparation
Healthy Homes non-compliance fine (per breach)Up to $7,200
Civil claim from injured contractor or family$100,000–$1,000,000+
One hour of a construction or property lawyer$350–$500+
TrustPoint — right nowFree · See how pricing works →
Property stream

Landlords carry a second compliance layer:
the Healthy Homes Standards

HSWA applies to anyone directing work. But if you own or manage rental property, the Residential Tenancies Act adds a second layer: the Healthy Homes Standards require specific licensed tradespeople for heating, insulation, ventilation, drainage, and moisture work.

Fines of up to $7,200 per breach have been fully in force since 1 July 2024. The question at the Tribunal isn’t whether the work was done — it’s whether it was done by a qualified, registered tradesperson and whether you can prove it.

1

Heating

Electrician (EWRB) for heat pump installation — reviewed against register

2

Insulation

PLI required — LBP if building fabric is involved

3

Ventilation

EWRB electrician for extractor fan wiring, PGDB if ducting requires plumbing work

4

Moisture & drainage

PGDB licensed drainlayer or plumber — reviewed against register

5

Draught stopping

LBP for any work involving the building fabric

What TrustPoint tracks for property managers

$7,200
Maximum fine per Healthy Homes breach

TrustPoint tracks EWRB registration, PGDB licence, and LBP class for every maintenance contractor in your network. Their status is current, not last-checked-at-onboarding. Before you book them for Healthy Homes work, you already know they’re qualified.

Every job is logged to a tamper-evident audit trail. If the Tribunal asks who did the work and whether they were registered — you have the record.

Full Healthy Homes compliance guide →
The legislation

What the Act actually requires

“A PCBU must ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety of workers who carry out work for the PCBU, including workers who are not employees.”

Health and Safety at Work Act 2015, s.36(1)

PCBU (Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking) includes builders, landlords, property managers, facilities managers — any business engaging contractors to carry out work. “Workers who are not employees” explicitly includes subcontractors. The duty doesn’t stop at your payroll.

See every TrustPoint feature mapped to its legal obligation →

WorkSafe NZ: enforcement data

The enforcement picture

Construction is consistently the highest-risk sector in WorkSafe’s enforcement programme. In the majority of serious incidents, the injured worker is a contractor, not a direct employee.

70
Workplace deaths in New Zealand in 2024
608+
Prosecutions filed since HSWA took effect
$5.4B
Annual economic cost of work-related harm in NZ
$3M
Maximum fine per prosecution for a company

In prosecution cases, WorkSafe frequently runs the case against the principal contractor as well as the direct employer. The most common evidentiary gap: the principal cannot produce a record of what they checked, when they checked it, and what the documents showed at the time.

Sorted before your next contractor starts.

Free right now — no time limit, no credit card.

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Founding mode

Every feature described on this site is built and operational. If something doesn’t work as described, tell us: operations@trustpoint.nz