Understanding WHS Laws in Australia for the Construction Industry

BUILDING AND CONSTRUCTION
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QUESTION ONE
How do the WHS laws in Australia relate to the company?
Workplace health and safety laws that are found in Australia that changed on the 1st January
2012 have gradually harmonized across Australia. WHS consist of a set of rules that is the codes
of conducts that highlight different roles that the public, as well as the worker, has to abide
during their contact in the place of work. The main purpose of these WHS law across Australia
as per the Queensland work safety and health act of 2011 is to protect the health and enhance
safety as well as welfare of the members of the public. This is achieved together with the
workers thereby ensuring that no worker is exposed to any risk in the work projects. Therefore,
there is a need of complying with these WHS laws to enhance understanding the compliances
code to help in a practical direction to members of the public as well as workers that have
particular duties and obligation to be upheld. There are eight codes compliance to comply with to
give proper information that includes
 Space which is confined
 First aid must be provided in the place of work
 Ensuring a better working environment as well as workplace amenities
 Ensuring that health occupational and safety are communicated across the
languages
 Ensuring that all generation construction falls are prevented
 Ensuring that foundries are in place
 Allow the management of asbestos within the place of work

 Allow the removal of asbestos in the working place
Therefore, in accordance with the business area as enforced by WHS which cover all business
areas to help in determining the injuries and illness to people in the places of work. Thus it is
considered as very crucial for an employer to implement WHS laws appropriately so as to help
the business in informing the employee's policies as well as the procedure that they should use to
meet the standards before the business is informed. When the business applies all the Australian
WHS laws in most of the business areas thus ensuring that any unwanted cost is avoided and
even the damages that may occur as a result of illness and injuries in the place of work.
Therefore, WHS laws have provided the industry with a strong foundation thus achieving the
maximum level of the business outcome.
Question one
Who is a subcontractor?
A subcontractor is a person though in many business cases is an individual that is allowed to sign
a contract in order to perform a port or a full obligation of the contract of another. Therefore, a
subcontractor may be a company or a person hired by the main contractor to do a specific duty as
a part of the whole project and being paid normally in consideration of the service that is
performed to the project through the originating general contractor. Whereas the concept of a
subcontractor is mostly used in building works as well as in civil engineering, as the
subcontractor opportunity range is very wide and therefore the possibilities of having a greater
number operating in the information technology as well as the sector of business
information(Armstrong, Gomes and Struth 2016).
Types of the subcontractor.

There are three types of subcontractors, these are
 Nominated subcontractor: this is the one who is nominated according to the contract
architect permit as well as the supervising officer so as to reserve the final selection right
as well as during the subcontractor's approval. The permission is given to the main
contractor to make a profit when using the nominated subcontractor to perform their
duties. This ensures a direct relation between the client and subcontractors.
 Domestic subcontractor: there is a subcontractor having the main contractor as a supply
and even fix material or goods as well as executing the work thus forming part of the
major contractor.
 Named subcontractor: this also may have a similar meaning with the domestic
subcontractor though named subcontractor is one who contracts the major contractor in
order to supply or fix good as well as material or even execute duties thus forming part of
the main contract. In most cases, this contractor is an employee of the main contractor.
Question two
What are the duties imposed on a person which ensure health and safety in the workplace?
 The duties that are imposed on the individual that ensure that the health, as well as safety,
are put in place in the workplace consist of the following;
 Engaging workers by undertaking their work for them especially by influencing them
directly or indirectly to so that their cam performs their duties.
 May put others on the risk of undertaking or performing their duties
 Must engage in managing or controlling fixtures/workplace and even the workplace
fixtures and plants.

 Engage in designing, manufacturing, importing and even supplying plant, structure or
substances that are being used in the workplace.
 Help in installing, constructing or commissioning the structures or plant in the place of
work.
Question two
Things addressed in contractor agreement includes
Confidentiality: There should be a surety that the terms of the contract are only between the
parties involved.
Information sensitivity: Sometime the contract may only require sensitive information regarding
the business so as to compare the business information of both parties to help in handling the
information such as unavoided customer data as well as ensuring the addition of non-poaching
agreement to the contract(Zuo and Zhao 2014).
Bribery: It is very crucial to make a conscious effort in order to avoided bribery meaning that
the bribery should not be accepted so to stop active bribery.
Hyperbole: It should be ensured that all misdirection as exaggeration is avoided therefore any
agreement that is based on false information to be considered invalid.
Advice: Pieces of advice should be received from a lawyer before signing the contract.
The mistaken agreements: Not only a written and signed contract are the only ones considered
as binding but also the oral agreement like the phone ones and even email messages are bindings

Question Three.
Scope of work for a contractor carpenter in Queensland
The scope of work includes the following;
 Constructing and erecting structures of the roof and wall framing of steel and timber
 Construction and erection of internal partition walls of non-loadbearing
 Erection of subfloor framing and ceiling
 Construction of stair made of timber
 Sheet flooring and timber installation
 Metal roofing installation
 Fixing process of moldings, panels and internal linings
 Locking windows and doors installation
 Restoration and renovation of frames windows and doors
 Fitments installations
 Simple form concretion such as concrete, formwork and reinforcement installation
 Erection and striping of formwork such as the forms of slip and jump formwork
Question three
Who are the duty holders in a workplace?
The duty holders according to the Australian WHS law, duty holders are individual having
responsibility in ensuring the safety of an organization or even a group of people. even though
everyone is expected to play a good role in giving health and safety first priority in the place of
working. WHS, as well as Work Health and Safety Regulations of 2011, encourage that an