Standards, codes and duty of care
Standards and codes in practice
Beyond the Act and regulations, candidates must understand how standards and codes support the duty of care. The model Code of Practice for managing risks of plant, and the general risk management code, describe the process: identify hazards, assess risk, control, review. Australian Standards provide technical detail - for mobile cranes the key documents cover crane safety, inspection, testing and maintenance, and the safe use of cranes. Rigging and load restraint standards also apply. You are not expected to quote clause numbers, but you should know that standards inform what 'reasonably practicable' looks like in practice.
Duty of care is personal and non-delegable in the sense that each person must act with care for their own safety and that of others. A crane operator who follows a signal that is obviously unsafe, or who operates with a known defect, breaches that duty even if a supervisor told them to. Conversely, refusing to operate an unsafe crane is a protected action, not insubordination.
Traps in exam questions
- Treating a code of practice as optional. It is admissible as evidence of what is known about a hazard, risk or control, and courts may consider it.
- Believing 'the supervisor told me to' is a defence. It is not; you must stop unsafe work.
- Confusing the roles: the dogger/rigger, crane operator, supervisor and maintenance provider each have defined responsibilities.
- Forgetting that the manufacturer's instructions and load charts form part of the required information, not optional guidance.
Worked example
A question describes an operator ordered to lift a load heavier than the chart allows because 'it has been done before'. The correct answer is to refuse and report: the duty of care and the manufacturer's chart override a verbal instruction.
Exam tip
When two answers seem right, choose the one that stops the task and escalates, not the one that continues with extra caution.