The 06:40 gate: an uninducted subcontractor
You are the only guard on a fenced Christchurch construction site, working the 06:00\u201314:00 gate shift. It is 06:40, minus two degrees, and the site is mid-build: a 4 m deep excavation runs along the eastern boundary, a tower crane is booked for a lift at 07:00, and the site rules require every person on site to hold a current Site Safety Induction card and to have signed the subcontractor pre-start with the site manager. A ute pulls up with two electricians. One has an induction card from a different site; the other has none. They say their firm is subcontracted to do first-fix before the pour and that 'Dave said it's fine'. The site manager's phone goes straight to voicemail. There is no other supervisor on site until 07:30. The driver has already begun reversing towards the open gate. Your site instructions say you have no authority to induct anyone, and that the client's written rule is 'no card, no entry, no exceptions'.
1. The electrician is pushing to be let in. Decide, and justify the decision with reference to your legal position and the site's safety systems.
Read the worked answer
Decision: they do not come in. They wait outside the fence line.
- You have no authority to vary the rule. Your role is to apply the site's access control procedure, not to make safety decisions for the PCBU. Only the site manager (or someone formally delegated) can induct and authorise entry. 'Dave said it's fine' is unverified hearsay from someone with an interest in getting past you.
- Health and Safety at Work Act 2015. The site PCBU must manage risks so far as is reasonably practicable, and that includes who is on site. An uninducted worker does not know the exclusion zones around the excavation, the crane lift plan, the spotter arrangements, the emergency assembly point or the first-aid layout. Admitting them creates a real risk of serious harm and puts you in the chain of causation \u2014 every worker also has a duty to take reasonable care for their own and others' safety.
- Contract and insurance. Uninducted people on site usually breach the head contract and can void indemnity cover.
- No enforcement power. You cannot detain them or search the ute. Refusing entry is a decision, not a confrontation - say it once, give the reason, and stand your ground without touching the vehicle.
- Practical alternative: ring the electrician's office and ask for a supervisor; ring your own control room; check the site's after-hours contact list; offer to sign them in as visitors under escort once an inducted person is on site from 07:30.
2. Set out what you would actually say at the gate \u2014 in what order, and why that order.
Read the worked answer
Acknowledge \u2192 explain with a concrete hazard \u2192 offer a route \u2192 state the boundary.
- Acknowledge and identify: 'Kia ora, I'm [name], the guard here. I get that you're trying to get a job done before the pour.' Using their name and standing side-on at about two metres, hands visible, not between them and the ute.
- Say the rule once, plainly: 'I can't let you past this point without an induction card and the signed pre-start.'
- Give the real reason, not 'policy': 'There's a crane lift at seven and a 4 m trench past the second container. If you're not inducted you don't know where the exclusion zone is, and I'd be the one who put you in it.' Concrete hazards land; 'health and safety' as a slogan does not.
- Offer a route: 'Here's what I can do \u2014 I'll ring your office now and get your supervisor, or you can wait in the ute and I'll sign you in as a visitor when the site manager's here at half seven.'
- State the boundary calmly: 'If you drive through the gate, I'll be ringing the site manager and the police. I'd rather sort it out here.'
Avoid: arguing about whether they've 'done it before', saying 'calm down', touching the ute, or standing behind it. If it turns abusive, withdraw behind the fence or into the site office, keep the gate shut, and ring \u2014 do not trade insults at a boom gate in the dark.
3. At 06:55 they drive around the gate through the rear vehicle entrance and head towards the excavation. What do you do, in what order, and what do you record?
Read the worked answer
Personal safety outranks the gate.
- Do not stand in front of a moving vehicle and do not chase on foot into an excavation area with a crane lift pending. A ute versus a guard is not a contest.
- Stop the work: radio or phone the crane supervisor and the site manager immediately so the lift is held and the eastern boundary is cleared. That call prevents the injury; catching the ute does not.
- Call 111 if there is immediate risk of serious harm \u2014 people at the trench edge, plant about to move.
- Observe from a fixed, safe position: registration, make and colour, number of occupants, which direction they took, where they stopped.
- Preserve the gate CCTV in writing before your shift ends, with the camera clock offset noted.
- Write the incident report the same shift: times, what was said at the gate, the words used, the decision, the bypass route, who you notified and when, what you did not do and why.
- Notify your supervisor and the client's site manager, and recommend a review of the rear gate (it should not have been openable). If anyone was actually endangered near the trench, flag it as a near miss for the client's HSWA records \u2014 it is a lesson, not a paperwork exercise.
- Follow up in writing: a trespass warning to the electrical firm's supervisor, and a note that 'Dave said it's fine' needs to become a signed pre-start next time.