New South Wales · SafeWork NSW
Pick your trade, tick the tasks on the job, print a Safe Work Method Statement with the hazards and controls already written. SafeWork NSW’s high risk construction work list and record rules are on this page, quoted from the source. No email, no signup.
Other states: VIC · QLD · all of Australia
Tick at least one task first.
Quoted from SafeWork NSW, read 12 September 2026. Links in the sources below.
Who prepares it. “A PCBU that carries out high risk construction work must ensure a SWMS is prepared.”
How long you keep it. “The SWMS should be kept and made available at the workplace where the high risk construction work will be carried out and until the work in which it relates is completed.”
Also. “If a notifiable incident occurs in relation to the high risk construction work in this SWMS, the SWMS must be kept for at least two years from the date of the notifiable incident.”
Also. “If the SWMS is revised, all versions should be kept.”
SafeWork NSW's high risk construction work list, from its own SWMS template:
Whenever the job includes high risk construction work as SafeWork NSW defines it. A PCBU that carries out high risk construction work must ensure a SWMS is prepared. The full list is on this page; the tasks in the generator that fall inside it are flagged in red.
SafeWork NSW: "The SWMS should be kept and made available at the workplace where the high risk construction work will be carried out and until the work in which it relates is completed." And: "If a notifiable incident occurs in relation to the high risk construction work in this SWMS, the SWMS must be kept for at least two years from the date of the notifiable incident."
A SWMS is compliant when it reflects the actual work, the actual site and the actual controls, and the workers doing the job have read and signed it. This tool writes the standard hazards and controls for each task in the standard format. You still check it against the site, add anything specific, and get it signed. What it saves is the hour spent photocopying last month's form.
The hazard and control library is the same in every state, because a fall from a ladder is the same fall in Melbourne and Brisbane. What changes is the regulator, the regulation named on the document, the high risk construction work list and the record-keeping rule. This page carries SafeWork NSW's version of each.
BackOnTools runs the trade business from the ute: the phone answered and jobs booked, quotes, invoices, crew and the safety paperwork kept with the job. SWMS and JSAs your workers read and sign digitally, stored against the job for the day the auditor asks.
