A Glossary of common and complex terms and their definitions.
Propelling a stream of abrasive material at high speed against a surface using compressed air, liquid, steam, centrifugal wheels or paddles to clean, abrade, etch or otherwise change the original appearance or condition of the surface.
Australian Bureau of Statistics
The practice of absenting oneself from duties, studies, employment, etc., often for inadequate reasons.
Australian Chamber
Asbestos-contaminated dust or debris
Asbestos containing material
A chemical's acute toxicity category is based on the amount of chemical needed to cause adverse effects from ingestion, skin absorption or inhalation of the chemical
Australian Dangerous Goods
Australian Code for the Transport of Dangerous Goods by Road and Rail; also referred to as the Australian Dangerous Goods Code
A method of work, a process or a procedure designed to minimise risk, but does not include an engineering control, or the use of personal protective equipment.
Individual Flexibility Agreements
Australian Forum of Explosives Regulators
The age of the employee at the time of death. Age is defined at the difference in years between the date of birth and the date of death.
Agricultural and veterinary
Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals
Australian Industry Group
A contaminant in the form of a fume, mist, gas, vapour or dust, and includes micro-organisms.
American Medical Association Guides
AMR
Australian Maritime Safety Authority
Australian National Audit Office
Australian Network on Disability
Australian National University
Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification
Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation
Asia-Pacific Occupational Safety and Health Organization
Australian Public Service
Australian Public Service Commission
Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority
Australian Research Council
Australian Safety and Compensation Council
Asbestos Safety and Eradication Agency
ASEAN Occupational Safety and Health Network
Asbestos Safety and Eradication Council
Australian Work Health and Safety Strategy 2012-2022
The sum of all observations divided by the number of observations.
Australian Work Exposures Study
Extended Australian Work Exposures Study
Building Code of Australia
business continuity management
A person injured or killed as a result of someone elses work activity, while not engaged in a work activity of their own.
A substance or mixture that causes or is suspected of causing cancer
Civil Aviation Safety Authority
Conference of Chief Inspectors of Mines
CEO
Chief Financial Officer
Council of Australian Governments
model Code of Practice Codes of practice are practical guides to achieving the standards of health, safety and welfare required under the WHS Act and the WHS Regulations in a jurisdiction. To have legal effect in a jurisdiction a model Code of Practice must be approved as a code of practice in that jurisdiction. To determine if a model Code of Practice has been approved in a particular jurisdiction, check with the relevant WHS regulator. Under a WHS Act in a jurisdiction, approved codes of practice are admissible in court proceedings. Courts may regard an approved code of practice as evidence of what is known about a hazard, risk or control and may rely on the code in determining what is reasonably practicable in the circumstances to which the code relates.
Compensation Policy and Return to Work Effectiveness project
Compensation Policy and Return to Work Effectiveness Project
Consultation Regulation Impact Statement
An action taken to eliminate or minimise health and safety risks so far as is reasonably practicable. A hierarchy of control measures is set out in the WHS Regulations to assist duty holders to select the highest control measures reasonably practicable.
Actions taken to eliminate or minimise health and safety risks so far as is reasonably practicable. A hierarchy of control measures is set out in the WHS Regulations to assist duty holders to select the highest control measures reasonably practicable.
Comparative Performance Monitoring
Communications Reference Group
(under the GHS) is a signal words on a label or safety data sheet that is used to indicate the relative level of severity of a hazard; Danger is used for more severe or significant hazards.
Decibel - The unit for measuring sound levels.
Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations
Dangerous goods
Direct costs include items such as workers compensation premiums paid by employers or payments to injured or incapacitated workers from workers compensation jurisdictions.
Decision Regulation Impact Statement
A duty holder refers to any person who owes a work health and safety duty under the WHS Act including a person conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU), designer, manufacturer, importer, supplier, installer of products or plant used at work (upstream duty holders), an officer and workers. More than one person can concurrently have the same duty in which case the duty is shared. Duties cannot be transferred.
Enterprise Agreement (Safe Work Australia Enterprise Agreement 2015 - 18)
Employee Consultation Forum
Evidence Reference Group
ecologically sustainable development
European Agency for Safety and Health at Work
Frequently asked question
frequently asked questions
A chemicals flammability category is based on how easily under normal conditions that the chemical will ignite.
Fatality Media Collection
Freedom of information
Freedom of Information act 1982
Falling objects protective structure
The number of claims expressed as a rate per hour worked. For serious claims, this is typically per million hours worked.
full time equivalents
Group of Twenty
The Group of Twenty is the premier international forum for cooperation on global economic governance. The members of the G20 are: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, and the European Union.
Gross domestic product: The total value of goods produced and services provided in a country during one year
Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals
Gross state product: The sum of all value added by industries within the state during one year. Serves as a counterpart to the gross domestic product (GDP)
Goods and Services Tax
A situation or thing that has the potential to harm a person.
Situations or things that have the potential to harm a person.
Hazardous Chemical Information System
Hazardous Chemical Information System
The hierarchy of risk control shows ways of controlling risks, ranked from the highest level of protection and reliability to the lowest.
High risk work
Health and safety committee: A consultative body established under the model WHS Act. The committee's functions include facilitating co-operation between workers and the person conducting a business or undertaking to ensure worker's health and safety at work, and assisting to develop work health and safety standards, rules and procedures for the workplace.
Health and safety representative: A worker who has been elected by a work group under the model WHS Act to represent them on health and safety issues.
Health and safety representatives
Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) is the technology used to provide indoor thermal comfort and acceptable indoor air quality.
Heads of Workers' Compensation Authorities
Heads of Workplace Safety Authorities
Indigenous Australian Government Development Program
International Association of Labour Inspection
International Advisory Panel
The worker died due to medical intervention
Irritant contact dermatitis
International Commission on Occupational Health
International Commission on Occupational Health
International Ergonomics Association
Intergovernmental Agreement for Regulatory and Operational Reform in Occupational Health and Safety
International Labour Organization
Indirect costs include items such as lost productivity, loss of current and future earnings, lost potential output and the cost of providing social welfare programs for injured or incapacitated workers.
Integrated planning framework
Information Publication Scheme
International Social Security Association
Job Family Model survey
The territory over which authority is exercised
Key performance indicator
low density asbestos fibre board
Lost time injury: A lost-time injury is defined as an occurrence that resulted in a fatality, permanent disability or time lost from work of one day/shift or more.
Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate Lost-time injury frequency rates refer to the number of lost-time injuries within a given accounting period, relative to the total number of hours worked in that period. LTIFR is a proxy measurement for safety performance.
Motivations, Attitudes, Perceptions and Skills project
The sum of all observations divided by the number of observations.
Mechanical ventilation uses fans, ducts and air-conditioning systems to bring in fresh air into a building from outside. This is also known as ‘active air flow’
The middle value in a distribution when all values are ordered from lowest to highest. The median divides a distribution in half, which means 50% of observations will be higher than the median and 50% will be lower. If there is an odd number of observations, the median value is the middle value.
Safe Work Australia Members
Metabolic equivalent of task
Major hazard facility
Marine Order
model Work Health and Safety Act - The model WHS Act forms the basis of the WHS Acts that have been implemented in most jurisdictions across Australia. The main object of the Act is to provide for a balanced and nationally consistent framework to secure the health and safety of workers and workplaces.
model Work Health and Safety laws - The model WHS laws consist of the model WHS Act, model WHS Regulations and model Codes of Practice.
model Work Health and Safety Regulations - The model WHS Regulations set out detailed requirements to support the duties in the model WHS Act.
Monash Centre for Occupational and Environmental Health
Memorandum of understanding
Musculoskeletal disorders
Medically treated injury frequency rates
Maritime Union of Australia
Relating to muscles and to the skeleton
Multi-walled carbon nanotubes
National assessment instruments
National Coronial Information System
National Code of Practice - National codes of practice declared by the National Commission under s.38(1) of the National Occupational Health and Safety Commission Act 1985 (Cwlth) are documents prepared for the purpose of advising employers and workers of acceptable preventive action for averting occupational deaths, injuries and diseases in relation to workplace hazards. It should be noted that National Commission documents are instruments of an advisory character, except where a law, other than the National Occupational Health and Safety Commission Act, or an instrument made under such a law, makes them mandatory. The application of any National Commission document in any particular State or Territory is the prerogative of that State or Territory. {superseded by model WHS laws, regs and codes}
National Data Set for Compensation-based Statistics
Notifiable Fatality Collection
National Hazard Exposure Worker Surveillance survey
National Health and Medical Research Council
National Industrial Chemicals Notification and Assessment Scheme
National Mine Safety Framework
National occupational hazard and risk management surveillance
National Occupational Health and Safety Commission
National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority
An incident that is required, under the model WHS Act, to be notified to regulators. Only the most serious safety incidents are intended to be notifiable and they trigger requirements to preserve the incident site pending further direction from the regulator. These include the death of a person, a serious injury or illness or a dangerous incident. Safe Work Australia receives information from jurisdictions on all notifiable fatalities and publishes monthly and annual summaries of this information.
National Road Safety Partnership Program
Occupational contact urticaria
Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development
An officer within the meaning of section 9 of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) other than each partner within a partnership. Broadly, an officer is a person who makes, or participates in making, decisions that affect the whole, or a substantial part, of the organisation's activities. Each partner within a partnership is not an officer but a PCBU in their own right. Under the model WHS Act, an officer must exercise due diligence to ensure compliance by the PCBU with its health and safety obligations.
Occupational Health and Safety
Occupational skin diseases
Occupational Safety and Health
Personality and total health
Personality and Total Health through Life project
Portfolio Budget Statements
Person conducting a business or undertaking. The model WHS Act places the primary duty of care on the PCBU. The term PCBU is an umbrella concept used to capture all types of working arrangements or structures. A PCBU can be a: company; unincorporated body or association; sole trader or self-employed person. Individuals who are in a partnership that is conducting a business will individually and collectively be a PCBU.
Person conducting a business or undertaking. The model WHS Act places the primary duty of care on the PCBU. The term PCBU is an umbrella concept used to capture all types of working arrangements or structures. A PCBU can be a: company; unincorporated body or association; sole trader or self-employed person. Individuals who are in a partnership that is conducting a business will individually and collectively be a PCBU.
The person with management or control of a workplace must ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that the workplace, the means of entering and exiting the workplace and anything arising from the workplace are without risks to the health and safety of any person.
Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013
Includes any machinery, equipment, appliance, container, implement or tool, and any component or anything fitted or connected to these things.
A definite course of action adopted as expedient or from other considerations
Personal protective equipment
The practice of continuing to go to work, especially when not working at a fully productive rate due to illness, stress, exhaustion caused by working beyond one's set hours, etc., often in an attempt to show commitment to one's employment.
Residual-current circuit breakers
Residual-current devices
A Regulation Impact Statement (RIS) is a tool used by governments, when introducing or abolishing regulation, to assess the likely impact of viable options against the default position of no change in a way that is transparent and accountable.
Research and Evaluation Reference Group
Regulation Impact Statement (RIS) is a tool used by governments, when introducing or abolishing regulation, to assess the likely impact of viable options against the default position of no change in a way that is transparent and accountable.
The possibility that harm (death, injury or illness) might occur when exposed to a hazard.
Taking action to eliminate health and safety risks so far as is reasonably practicable, and if that is not possible, minimising the risks so far as is reasonably practicable. Eliminating a hazard will also eliminate any risks associated with that hazard.
The possibility that harm (death, injury or illness) might occur when exposed to a hazard.
Registered training organisation
Return to Work
Safety Data Sheet
Seafarers Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Authority
Being still or not moving often enough.
An accepted workers' compensation claim for an incapacity that results in a total absence from work for one working week or more. It includes claims that receive common-law payments. Claims that arise from a journey to or from work, or during a recess period, are not compensable in all jurisdictions and are excluded, as are compensated fatalities.
Strategic issues group - Explosives members
Strategic Issues Group - Work Health and Safety
Strategic issues group - Work health and safety members
Strategic issues group - Workers' compensation members
State Insurance Regulatory Authority
Business Index - Small and Medium Enterprises'
Safety Management System
Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Commission
Shared Services Centre
Anything that is constructed, whether fixed or moveable, temporary or permanent, and includes buildings, masts, towers, framework, pipelines, transport infrastructure and underground words (shafts or tunnels). Also includes any component or part of a structure.
Any natural or artificial substance whether in the form of a solid, liquid, gas or vapour.
Supply and re-supply of a thing provided by way of sale, exchange, lease, hire or hire-purchase arrangement, whether as principal or agent.
Safe Work Australia A tripartite body made up of the Chair, Safe Work Australia Members and the Chief Executive Officer
Single-walled carbon nanotubes
Safe Work Method Statement
Transport and Road Safety
For import
Therapeutic Goods Administration
The Safe Work Australia Agency
Safe Work Australia Chair
Safe Work Australia Corporate Plan
Australian Government
Safe Work Australia Operational Plan
Type of Occurrence Classification System - A suite of four classifications to code the way an injury occurred, comprising:
- the Nature of injury/disease classification
- the Bodily location of injury/disease classification- the Mechanism of incident classification, and
- the Agency of injury/disease classification.
Version 3.1 is used for coding the data presented in this report. Fatalities are only coded by Mechanism and Agency.
Total recordable injury frequency rates
United Nations
UN Sub-Committee of Experts on the Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals
The UN Sub-Committee of Experts on the Transport of Dangerous Goods
University of New South Wales
Units of competency
Volts alternating current
Volts direct current
Vocational Education and Training
A person who acts on a voluntary basis regardless of whether they receive out of pocket expenses.
A group of volunteers working together for one or more community purposes where none of the volunteers, whether alone or jointly with any other volunteers, employs any person to carry out work for the volunteer association.
Virtual Seminar Series
(under the GHS) is a signal word on a label or safety data sheet that is used to indicate the relative level of severity of a hazard; Warning is used for less severe or significant hazards.
Workers' compensation
Workplace exposure standards
World Health Organization
Work health and safety
WHS laws require organisations that employ paid workers ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the physical and mental health and safety of workers, including volunteers.
Manages compliance and enforcement of WHS laws; has enforcement and arbitration powers.
Work Health and Safety Committee
Workplace Health and Safety Queensland
Work Health Improvement Networks
A group of workers represented by a HSR who in many cases share similar work conditions, for example all the electricians in a factory, all people on night shift, all people who work in the loading bay of a retail storage facility.
Any person who carries out work for a PCBU, including work as an employee, contractor, subcontractor, self-employed person, outworker, apprentice or trainee, work experience student, employee of a labour hire company placed with a 'host employer' and volunteers.
Fatalities that resulting from an injury sustained in the course of a work activity
Any place where work is carried out for a business or undertaking and includes any place where a worker goes, or is likely to be, while at work. This may include offices, factories, shops, construction sites, vehicles, ships, aircraft or other mobile structures on land or water.
The repeated and unreasonable behaviour directed towards a worker or group of workers that creates a risk to health and safety.
A workplace exposure standard for a particular chemical sets out the legal concentration limit of that chemical that must not be exceeded.
Workplace Relations Ministers' Council
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