In most safety standards, it means any task where a person could fall and injure themselves. That can be a roof, a ladder, scaffolding, a mezzanine, or even the edge of an excavation. The height itself matters less than the consequence of falling.

If your roof or elevated work area does not have permanent fall protection in place, contact us for a height safety assessment and compliant system design.

Under Australian Work Health and Safety (WHS) legislation, duty holders must first eliminate the risk of a fall, so far as is reasonably practicable.
If elimination is not possible, the risk must be minimised using the hierarchy of controls:
• fall-prevention devices such as guardrails, edge protection or elevating work platforms (EWP),
• work-positioning systems like fall restraint or rope access,
• a fall-arrest systems such as: anchor points, static lifelines, rigid rails.

A harness is needed when other controls aren’t practical and there’s a risk of falling beyond a set distance (often around 2 meters, but this varies). Wearing a harness without a proper anchor and rescue plan is recipe for disaster.

Height safety is a shared responsibility, with the primary duty of care held by the Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking (PCBU). This includes employers, building owners, facility managers, and principal contractors.