The specific duties of care should incorporate broad requirements for:
hazard identification, risk assessment and risk control;
appropriate testing and examination to identify any hazards and risks;
the provision of information to the person to whom the plant, structure or substance is provided about the hazards, risks and risk control measures; and
the ongoing provision of any additional information as it becomes available.
Supply
An item of plant may change hands on a number of occasions. An item of plant or a substance may be provided in a number of different ways (e.g. sale, lease, loan). The passing of ownership of an item may occur some time after the item has been physically provided to the person using it.
This raises an issue as to when supply occurs, attracting the operation of the duty of care placed on a supplier. The case law on this issue is unclear, although suggesting that supply occurs at the time that physical possession of an item passes from one person to another.211
Some current OHS Acts include definitions of ‘supply’, but these relate to the means of supply (e.g. lease) rather than the time at which supply occurs.212
We consider that the model Act should include a definition of supply that makes clear the time at which, and the means by which, supply would be considered to occur.
While the definitions for terms such as this are to be dealt with in our second report, we note at this time that supply could take the following forms:
