If you’re looking for a job in construction, mining or utilities doing high risk work, you’ll need a special license to qualify. These fields of work are considered high risk and require extra training and certification.
So what is high-risk work in Australia?
Here’s all you need to know about high-risk work and licences.
What is High-Risk Work?
According to Safe Work Australia, high-risk work involves activities that could potentially harm a worker. These include working at a construction site, a mobile plant, a major hazard facility like an oil refinery, a chemical storage site, or a chemical manufacturing site.
High-risk work often involves using large, specialised equipment like cranes and forklifts or handling potentially dangerous equipment like boilers, turbines, and steam engines.
Workers need a high-risk license to meet Work Health and Safety (WHS) regulations and to polish and update their skills and credentials.
Types of High-Risk Work
More specifically, high-risk work involves the following activities:
- Scaffolding work: Setting up scaffolding and changing or taking down any temporary structure which supports a platform when working at heights
- Rigging and dogging work: Using a sling to move a load using a crane or hoist
- Forklift truck operation
- Reach stacker operation
- Boom or crane operation
- Boiler, steam turbine, or steam engine operation
How to Get a High-Risk Licence
If you plan to work in any of the high-risk jobs above, you must find a registered training organisation (RTO) and choose the right course. The National Register accredits an RTO for Vocational Education and Training to offer high-risk training courses in Australia.
Once you complete your course, you have 60 days to apply for your high-risk work licence with your WHS regulator. A high-risk licence is valid for five years, but you have to renew it within a year of its expiry date. Otherwise, you can’t work without it, and you’ll have to undergo high-risk training once again.
Note: The only times when you don’t need a high-risk licence are if:
- You have already enrolled in a high-risk training course with a licenced supervisor overseeing your work; or,
- You’ve applied to renew your high-risk licence within the required 60 days
How to Maintain Your High-Risk Licence
You can only practice what is high-risk work if you comply with regulations after you complete your high-risk training and receive your licence. This means that you:
- Do only the kind of work you’re licenced to do
- Always keep your high-risk licence with you while you work
- Inform the WHS if your high-risk permit get lost, destroyed, or stolen
- Notify the WHS if you change your address within two weeks of moving
- Hand over your high-risk permit if the WHS requests it.
Get Quality High-Risk Training with Kallibr Training (RTO 32365)
To understand high-risk work and choose the best course, get in touch with Kallibr Training. We offer fully accredited high-risk work licence training in our real-world facilities in Victoria, Queensland and New South Wales.
Sign up for your Kallibr Training high-risk licence training online, or call us at 1300 668 141 today.
