A Fall From Any Height Can Injure Or Kill
Working at heights means any task where a person could fall far enough to be hurt: off a roof or a ladder, from a scaffold or an elevating work platform, over an unguarded edge, or through a fragile skylight. There is no height below which a fall becomes safe. Australian law sets thresholds that trigger paperwork and high-risk classification, not a line under which gravity stops mattering.
Short falls can injure people as badly as long ones, because the outcome is decided by what is underneath the worker and how they land. Low work is also where protection is easiest to skip. STARC trains and supports crews in construction, manufacturing, oil and gas, mining, utilities and healthcare, and the same principle carries across all of them: choose the control from the consequence of the fall, then check whether the law asks for more on top.
What The Australian Rules Actually Require
WorkSafe NT sets out that construction work involving a risk of a person falling more than 2 metres is high risk construction work under the WHS Regulations, and that a safe work method statement must be prepared before the work starts. Read that as a classification and documentation trigger, not a height below which a fall stops being a risk you have to manage.
One point in particular deserves emphasis: a fall-arrest system is not a complete control on its own. Safe Work Australia’s model Code of Practice Managing the risk of falls at workplaces states that a PCBU that implements a fall-arrest system as a control measure must establish emergency and rescue procedures, and that a worker should not use a fall-arrest system unless someone on site can rescue them. Requirements are not identical in every state and territory, so confirm what applies to your work with your own regulator.
Harnesses Sit Near The Bottom Of The Control Order
The controls come in a set order, and a harness sits near the bottom of it. Eliminate the need to go up: assemble at ground level, specify plant that can be serviced from below. If you cannot, use passive protection that works without anyone doing anything right, such as guardrails, covers over penetrations and a fully planked platform. Only then work restraint, then fall arrest, then rules and signs.
That same order should decide the access equipment. A ladder suits short, light tasks where three points of contact are realistic; it is not a workstation. A mobile scaffold or an elevating work platform gives you a platform and an edge. Rope access is for structures nothing else reaches. Fragile roof sheeting, unprotected penetrations and unsecured tools all create fall risk, and none of them are fixed by a better harness. Where arrest genuinely is the remaining control, the harnesses and fall protection gear still have to suit the task, the anchor and the environment.
Fall Arrest Only Works If Someone Can Get Them Down
Every job that depends on fall arrest needs a rescue plan, and the people and equipment to carry it out, ready before anyone clips on. A worker whose lanyard has done its job is suspended, not saved. Suspension in a harness is dangerous in itself, and a worker who is unconscious or injured cannot assist their own recovery.
Calling triple zero is a response, not a control measure: the time an ambulance or an aerial appliance takes to reach a suspended worker on your site is time you do not control. A plan that stands up to scrutiny names who performs the rescue, from what position, with what equipment, how long it should take, and when it was last rehearsed under realistic conditions. STARC runs rescue scenario and rehearsal training because the gap between a written plan and a practised one only shows up under load, and post-fall recovery training for what happens to the casualty once they are down.
When A Standby Rescue Team Is The Practical Control
Some jobs are beyond what a site crew can retrieve someone from, however well drilled they are. Tower and telco structures, silo and tank entries, façade work on suspended access, and confined spaces that also carry a fall risk all put the casualty somewhere an untrained team cannot reach quickly or safely. On those jobs the practical control is a standby rescue team on site for the duration, briefed on the structure, rigged before work starts and doing nothing else. Scoping one starts with the structure, the access and egress route, how a casualty would be packaged and how long it would take to get them to the ground. Our guide to heights and confined space rescue planning walks through what the plan has to contain. If the answer to any of those questions is uncomfortable, call 1300 178 272 before the job is booked, not after.
Anchors, Static Lines And What An Audit Returns
If nobody at your site can say what the anchor points on the roof are rated for, who installed them or when they were last certified, treat the system as unavailable until it has been assessed. AS/NZS 5532 sets the manufacturing, performance, test method, marking and labelling requirements for single-point anchor devices used for harness-based work at height. Separately, fall-arrest harnesses and personal equipment must be inspected by a competent person at least every six months, in addition to the user’s inspection before each use.
Older commercial buildings are where this bites: brackets and eye bolts of unknown provenance, a static line with no tag, and a building file that mentions none of it. What a STARC height safety inspection and audit hands back is an assessed register — every anchor, static line, ladder and roof access point listed, its condition and certification status recorded, defects called out and any item that must not be used flagged. That register is what a facility manager gives a contractor at induction, and what tells you whether a system can be recertified or has to be replaced. To book one, call 1300 178 272.
The Training Employers Ask For, And What A Record Must Show
Employers commonly ask for a recognised work safely at heights competency before anyone goes up. RIIWHS204E Work Safely at Heights is a nationally recognised unit listed on training.gov.au, delivered by registered training organisations, with a Statement of Attainment recognised under the Australian Qualifications Framework. A nationally recognised competency is the starting point most sites check for. What that competency is not is evidence that a particular person can work safely on your structure with your equipment.
A working at heights training record should show what the training covered, who delivered it, the date and the person it belongs to. Site competence needs more: which equipment they were assessed on, which anchors and access systems they were inducted to, whether they have taken part in a rescue rehearsal, and when their employer requires refreshing. Principal contractors often set their own refresher interval, so check the one that applies to your site. STARC delivers height safety training programs, including the rescue and confined space training that sits alongside heights work. Email info@starc.com.au with your headcount and the site.
How We Scope A Job And Quote It
Cost follows the scope: how many people are being trained and where, which training they need, whether we are assessing one roof or a portfolio of sites, and how many rescue technicians a job needs standing by and for how long. Each is quoted from the actual work.
- Tell us the work, the structures involved and how people currently get to them.
- We assess what is there — access systems, anchors and any existing rescue plan — or, for training, what the crew already holds.
- We scope the deliverable in writing: a training program, an audit register, a rescue plan, a standby team, or a combination.
- You receive a written quote and dates, and after delivery you keep the records, reports and register.
Training covers instruction, assessment, the equipment used on the course and the records issued. An audit covers assessment and reporting on the systems already in place; it does not include designing or installing new anchor systems, and replacement gear is quoted separately. We work with organisations across Australia — construction, manufacturing, oil and gas, mining, utilities and healthcare — on training, safety consulting, inspections and audits, standby rescue for heights and confined space entry, and equipment supply. Email info@starc.com.au with the site and the dates and we will tell you what is involved.
Frequently Asked Questions
At What Height Is A Harness Required?
No height makes a harness compulsory by itself. A harness is the answer when a fall is possible and every control above it is not reasonably practicable, including at low heights. It only works if the anchor is rated for the job and there is enough clear space beneath it for the lanyard to deploy and stop the person before they reach the ground or the next obstruction. Measure that clearance before anyone clips on.
What Does A Competent Person Mean For Inspections?
For equipment inspection it means someone with the knowledge, training and experience to examine that specific system, judge whether it can stay in service, and condemn it if it cannot. It is not simply the most senior person available on the day, and the inspection has to be recorded against the item or it did not happen.
Who Is Responsible When Subcontractors Share A Site?
Where more than one business shares a site, no one of them can assume the others have it covered. In practice that means agreeing in writing, before mobilisation, who provides edge protection, who owns the anchors, who holds the rescue capability and who gets notified. Assuming the principal contractor has rescue covered is where this most often comes apart.
What Happens To A Harness That Has Arrested A Fall?
It comes out of service immediately and is tagged and quarantined so it cannot be picked back up, and it is not returned to use on the strength of a visual check. Treat the equipment as consumed. The worker needs medical assessment even if they walk away, and the incident may carry reporting obligations to your state regulator.
Does A Standby Rescue Team Replace Crew Training?
It does not. Your people still need working at heights competency, pre-use equipment checks and a working knowledge of the rescue plan, because they are the ones raising the alarm and holding the scene. A standby team covers the retrieval your crew is not equipped or trained to perform, on the jobs where waiting for an outside response is not a control.
Talk to us about training, anchor audits or a standby rescue team for your next job!