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36: Primary duty of care
or “Business owners must ensure workers' and others' safety and health”
You could also call this:

“PCBUs must ensure workplace safety for all legal visitors”

If you manage or control a workplace, you have a duty to make sure it’s safe. This means you need to do everything you reasonably can to ensure the workplace, how people enter and exit it, and anything that comes from it don’t put anyone’s health and safety at risk.

However, you don’t have this duty to people who are in the workplace for illegal reasons.

If you’re running a farm, your duty only covers the farm buildings and the areas right around them that are needed for your farming business. It doesn’t include the main farmhouse or other parts of the farm, unless work is happening there at the time.

When we talk about someone who manages or controls a workplace, we mean a person conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU) who is in charge of all or part of the workplace. But this doesn’t include people living in their own homes, unless the home is used for business. It also doesn’t include certain other people specified by law.

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Next up: 38: Duty of PCBU who manages or controls fixtures, fittings, or plant at workplaces

or “Responsibility to keep workplace equipment safe”
Next

Part 2 Health and safety duties
Duties of PCBUs

37Duty of PCBU who manages or controls workplace

  1. A PCBU who manages or controls 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.

  2. Despite subsection (1), a PCBU who manages or controls a workplace does not owe a duty under that subsection to any person who is at the workplace for an unlawful purpose.

  3. For the purposes of subsection (1), if the PCBU is conducting a farming business or undertaking, the duty owed by the PCBU under that subsection—

  4. applies only in relation to the farm buildings and any structure or part of the farm immediately surrounding the farm buildings that are necessary for the operation of the business or undertaking:
    1. does not apply in relation to—
      1. the main dwelling house on the farm (if any); or
        1. any other part of the farm, unless work is being carried out in that part at the time.

        2. In this section, a PCBU who manages or controls a workplace—

        3. means a PCBU to the extent that the business or undertaking involves the management or control (in whole or in part) of the workplace; but
          1. does not include—
            1. the occupier of a residence, unless the residence is occupied for the purposes of, or as part of, the conduct of a business or undertaking; or
              1. a prescribed person.

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