The six pins · Pin 05 of 06
Pin 05 · Pest control at a workplacePest control at a workplace: whose safety duty is it?
Both businesses have one. Under the model work health and safety laws, when more than one business has a duty about the same matter, each keeps its own responsibility, neither can contract it out, and they must consult, cooperate and coordinate with each other so far as is reasonably practicable. A business that brings in a pest controller is in exactly that position, and the hazardous chemicals rules sit on top.
General information, not legal advice. Safe Work Australia writes the model laws; your state or territory’s work health and safety regulator enforces them, and Victoria has its own law.
The model laws in seven states and territories, Victoria’s own in the eighth
Safe Work Australia records when each jurisdiction adopted the model work health and safety (WHS) laws: the Commonwealth, the ACT, NSW, the Northern Territory and Queensland on 1 January 2012; South Australia and Tasmania on 1 January 2013; and Western Australia, which passed its own version of the model laws, from 31 March 2022. Victoria is the only jurisdiction that has not implemented them.
Even where the model laws apply, each state and territory may vary them to suit its own jurisdiction, so the laws of the place where the work happens are the ones to check. In Victoria, the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 and its 2017 regulations, administered by WorkSafe Victoria, require employers to protect employees who use hazardous substances.
The rest of this page follows Safe Work Australia’s explanation of the model laws.
What a business owes its workers and visitors
A person conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU, in the law’s words) has a primary duty to ensure the health and safety of its workers, and of others who may be affected by the work, such as visitors. So far as is reasonably practicable, that duty includes, among other things:
- a safe work environment, and safe systems of work
- the safe use, handling and storage of substances
- the instruction, training, information and supervision workers need
- managing risks from airborne contaminants and hazardous atmospheres
The business must also consult workers who are, or are likely to be, directly affected by a health and safety matter, take their views into account, and tell them the outcome.
The host and the pest controller
Safe Work Australia’s explanation is direct. Where more than one business owes a duty about the same matter, each keeps its responsibility and must meet it to the extent it can influence and control the matter; a duty cannot be transferred to someone else. Safe Work Australia publishes a model Code of Practice on consultation, cooperation and coordination for exactly these arrangements.
An office books an evening treatment for cockroaches in its kitchen. The office controls its building, its staff and when people come and go. The pest control business controls the products it brings and how they are applied. Under the principle above, each acts on the part it controls, and the two plan the job together rather than either assuming the other has it covered.
Questions a host might put
The official pages give the host a few concrete things to ask for:
- a safety data sheet for the pesticide, which the NT Government suggests asking for if you have questions about it
- the technician’s licence for the work, from the state regulator in pin 01
What the pest controller brings
A business that uses hazardous chemicals has the specific duties set out in the next section, and Safe Work Australia’s guide to health monitoring for organophosphate pesticides lists pest control operators who use them among the workers it covers.
The chemicals rules, in outline
Safe Work Australia lists the specific duties of a business involving hazardous chemicals. Among them:
- identify, assess and control the risks, thinking about the chemical’s hazards, possible reactions with other substances, and the work being done
- store hazardous chemicals safely
- keep a hazardous chemical register, including a current safety data sheet for each chemical on it
- keep a manifest, and display placards, once quantities pass the set thresholds
- inform, train, instruct and supervise workers
- stay within workplace exposure standards for certain airborne chemicals, and provide health monitoring for certain chemicals
Safety data sheets should be easy to reach for every worker who uses, handles or stores the chemical, for emergency services, and for anyone else who may be exposed.
A rule about to change. Safe Work Australia says workplace exposure limits (WELs) come into effect on 1 December 2026, and until then workplaces must keep complying with the existing workplace exposure standards. Check its page before relying on either.
Labels on pest control products
Agricultural and veterinary chemicals are exempt from full WHS labelling when they are registered with, or used under a permit from, the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) and labelled under its labelling codes; manufacturers and importers must still add any relevant hazard and precautionary statements the APVMA label lacks. A consumer product in its original packaging also needs no WHS label if it is only used in household quantities, in the way a household would use it, and incidentally to the work.
When the regulator must be told
Safe Work Australia’s page on hazardous chemicals says a business must notify the regulator as quickly as possible when someone has died, when someone has a serious injury or illness and needs urgent immediate treatment, when someone exposed to a substance needed treatment within 48 hours, or when there was a dangerous incident. The page then says to leave the incident site and not return, except to help an injured person, remove someone who has died, do what is essential to make the site safe, or stop further notifiable incidents. Police investigations, or permission from the regulator or an inspector, override this.