Site induction requirements in Western Australia

Short answer: yes, including on houses. WA has no regulation that names a site induction, but its approved Construction Work Code of Practice says that in housing construction work, PCBUs must provide relevant workplace specific training. And any job with 5 or more people working at once is a construction project, whatever it costs.

Need it on paper today? Print the free site induction register, or check what your WA job needs in under a minute.

WA at a glance

WA moved to harmonised WHS laws in March 2022. The general duty to inform and train works the same here as in the other harmonised states. What follows is what WA does differently.

Who should run a site induction in WA?

Section 6.2 of the approved Code answers it directly: the induction "should be conducted by a PCBU who has management or control at the workplace, or by the principal contractor". It doesn't need to repeat what's in the SWMS or the white card training. It can happen at a pre-start, at a toolbox talk, on the job, or through what the Code calls "online technologies and apps".

Do you need a site induction on a house in WA?

Yes. This is where WA and Queensland part ways. Queensland says a site-specific induction isn't compulsory on housing. The WA Code says:

In housing construction work, PCBUs must provide relevant workplace specific training.

A subbie can deliver that training to their own crew on your behalf, once you've talked them through the site. You then check it happened. On a house with six trades through in a fortnight, a dated record of every worker inducted is how you show that check.

An approved Code can be used in court as evidence of what was reasonably practicable. Departing from it needs a reason you could explain.

What is a construction project in WA?

Everywhere else, a dollar figure decides it. In WA it's headcount: construction work where 5 or more persons are, or are likely to be, working at the same time (regulation 292).

Five trades on the slab on the same morning is enough. Plenty of WA house builds cross that line, and once they do, the principal contractor needs a written WHS management plan with the site rules, and must make every worker aware of it before they start (regulations 309 and 310).

WA hasn't adopted the regulation requiring a principal contractor's sign at the site (regulation 308 is marked "Not used"). A sign at the gate is still the obvious place for your induction QR code.

How do white cards work in WA?

Registered training organisations issue them under an agreement with WorkSafe, and replacements go through the RTO that issued the card. Old blue cards are still valid. You can look a card up on WorkSafe's online licence search before someone starts.

WorkSafe WA says the white card training "is not designed to take the place of work site or task specific instruction". It's a check at the gate, and the induction still has to happen.

What makes a WA induction work?

WorkSafe WA's guidance on effective inductions says every new worker should get one, and that the PCBU is responsible for making sure it's understood. It warns that "asking your workers to read and sign-off on pages of text that are legal or technical in nature is unlikely to be successful."

So keep it to what's live on this site this week, and let the site induction checklist builder handle the rest of the list.

Foreman's site inductions give every WA site its own QR sign, and the register fills itself in as people induct. If you'd rather use paper, the free site induction register gives you the dated record.

For the other states, see site induction requirements in every state.

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General information about WA law, not legal advice. For your own job, check with WorkSafe WA.