Our submission to Parliament: falls above 1.3 metres should be a critical risk

In March 2026 Workdek made a submission to the select committee on the Health and Safety at Work Amendment Bill, recommending that falls from height above 1.3 metres be formally classified as a critical risk in residential construction.

The reasoning comes out of the WorkSafe data rather than out of our own view of it.

Residential building sites account for more injuries than any other workplace in the construction sector. More than half of falls are from under three metres. Around seventy per cent involve ladders and roofs.

That is not a picture of dramatic falls from significant height during unusual work. It is a picture of ordinary tasks, at heights that everyone on site has stopped treating as a hazard, producing a steady flow of serious harm.

Classifying something as a critical risk changes how it must be managed. It requires specific controls, verification that those controls are working, and it moves the question from site-by-site judgement to governance.

We supply a fall prevention product, so a framework that prioritises prevention is commercially good for us. We said so in the submission. The case stands on evidence that is not ours — the WorkSafe data, the UK experience, and the hierarchy of controls itself.