The falls duty applies at any height that can injure. Two metres is only where the construction paperwork starts.

The duty has no height threshold

Regulation 78 of the model WHS Regulations obliges a PCBU to manage the risk of "a fall by a person from one level to another that is reasonably likely to cause injury", and then spells out where that risk lives: an elevated workplace, the vicinity of an opening or an edge, a surface a person could fall through, and "any other place from which a person could fall". No metre figure appears anywhere in the regulation. The falls code makes the same point in its first paragraph with deliberately unglamorous examples: stacking shelves, working on a roof, unloading a large truck, and falls at ground level into trenches or service pits. Where the famous number does appear is in the construction chapter of the regulations: construction work with a risk of a person falling more than 2 metres is high risk construction work, which must not start until a safe work method statement has been prepared. That is a paperwork trigger for one industry, not a permission slip for everyone else. The code also notes the trigger is not even nationally uniform: some jurisdictions set the construction fall-height trigger at 3 metres in their own regulations. A retail worker on a step stool and a farmhand on a silo ladder are both inside regulation 78 the moment the fall could plausibly injure.

The regulation fixes the order of controls, not just the goal

Falls is one of the hazards where the model law does not leave the hierarchy of controls to guidance. Regulation 78 requires that, so far as is reasonably practicable, work involving a fall risk is carried out on the ground or on a solid construction, and defines solid construction with four tests: a surface structurally capable of supporting everyone and everything placed on it, barriers around its perimeter and openings, an even and readily negotiable surface and gradient, and a safe means of entry and exit. The code translates the barrier test into millimetres: a guardrail top between 900 mm and 1,100 mm above the working surface, with mid-rails and toe-boards or mesh infill. If elimination is not reasonably practicable, regulation 79 sets a fixed sequence: a fall prevention device first, and only if that is not reasonably practicable a work positioning system, and only then a fall arrest system. A fall prevention device is the passive family that works without the worker doing anything: the regulation's own list is a secure fence, edge protection, working platforms and covers. Administrative controls, the code says, may support the higher controls, but relying on them exclusively is appropriate only when nothing higher up the list is reasonably practicable. Controls may be combined where one alone is not enough.

Ladders are in the code, near the bottom of the list

The falls code treats ladders the way the hierarchy demands: as the option to consider after safer alternatives such as elevating work platforms or scaffolds have been considered first and found not reasonably practicable. When a ladder is the answer, the code is specific. Ladders should carry a load rating of at least 120 kg and be manufactured for industrial use; domestic and homemade ladders should not be used at work. Single and extension ladders are for access, exit or short-duration light work, set at a 4:1 slope and secured against slipping. Users should keep three points of contact going up, down and while working, carry tools in a belt rather than a hand, and never stand on a rung closer than 900 mm to the top of a single or extension ladder. The code's list of what is not safe from a ladder reads like an incident register in reverse: two-handed power tools, high-leverage tools that can throw the user off balance, over-reaching beyond the stiles, and hot work. Trestle scaffolds get a parallel warning: generally not suitable at 2 metres or above without guardrails and toe-boards.

A harness creates a second duty: the rescue

A fall arrest system is the bottom of the regulation 79 sequence for a reason, and choosing it switches on regulation 80: the PCBU must establish emergency procedures, including rescue procedures, must test them so they are effective, and must train the workers who use the system or would run the rescue. The code explains the physiology behind the urgency. A person hanging upright in a harness after an arrested fall can develop suspension intolerance: blood pools in the lower legs, the heart slows, and the person can faint, with renal failure and death the end of the progression. The code's practical lines are blunt: workers should never work alone in a harness, and where a rescue is likely to take more than five minutes the harness and connection should let the suspended worker raise their legs to near horizontal. The system itself should be rigged so free fall never exceeds 2 metres, with enough clearance below for the shock absorber to deploy. Falls rescue procedures belong inside the workplace's broader regulation 43 emergency plan, and relying on an ambulance is a decision the code asks you to make consciously, with response time in front of you, not by default.

What falls actually cost, in the national data

Falls from a height killed 24 workers in 2024, 13 per cent of the 188 worker fatalities Safe Work Australia counted, making it the second most common fatal mechanism behind vehicle incidents. On the injury side, falls, trips and slips of a person produced 32,000 serious workers' compensation claims in 2023-24, 21.8 per cent of the national total, with median time lost of 8.6 weeks and median compensation of $17,800. Within that group the report attributes 24.4 per cent to falls from a height, which works out to roughly 7,800 serious claims a year from the hazard this page covers, against 68.3 per cent from falls on the same level. The from-height share is the one that carries the fatality weight, which is why the falls duty gets its own Part of the regulations while same-level falls are managed under the general duty. The dollar figures sit inside the injury-cost picture this masthead has covered separately.