Queensland · WorkSafe Queensland
Pick your trade, tick the tasks on the job, print a Safe Work Method Statement with the hazards and controls already written. WorkSafe Queensland’s high risk construction work list and record rules are on this page, quoted from the source. No email, no signup.
Other states: VIC · NSW · all of Australia
Tick at least one task first.
Quoted from WorkSafe Queensland, read 12 September 2026. Links in the sources below.
Who prepares it. “A person conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU) carrying out high risk construction work is required under the Work Health and Safety Regulation 2011 (WHS Regulation) to: ensure that a safe work method statement (SWMS) is prepared before the proposed work starts.”
How long you keep it. “keep a copy of the SWMS until the high risk construction work is completed.”
Also. “ensure that a copy of the SWMS is given to the principal contractor before the work starts”
Also. “ensure that a SWMS is reviewed and revised if necessary”
Also. “if the work is not carried out in accordance with the SWMS, the work is: stopped immediately or as soon as it is safe to do so”
Queensland uses the harmonised WHS definition of high risk construction work. The eighteen categories, as printed on SafeWork NSW's template under the same model law:
Whenever the job includes high risk construction work as WorkSafe Queensland defines it. A person conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU) carrying out high risk construction work is required under the Work Health and Safety Regulation 2011 (WHS Regulation) to: ensure that a safe work method statement (SWMS) is prepared before the proposed work starts. The full list is on this page; the tasks in the generator that fall inside it are flagged in red.
WorkSafe Queensland: "keep a copy of the SWMS until the high risk construction work is completed."
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 WorkSafe Queensland'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.
