WHS registers: which ones a business must keep and what goes in each, with a free template

Most Australian businesses must keep a register of injuries, a hazardous chemicals register with current safety data sheets, five years of notifiable incident records, and test records for plug-in electrical gear used in harsh conditions. Plant records and an asbestos register apply where relevant. A hazard register is good practice, not a named law.

That last line surprises people, because the hazard register is usually the first one an auditor asks for. Below, each register is matched to the law that names it (not always the WHS Act). This is general information, not legal or safety advice. Regulation numbers are from the model WHS Regulations as published in the Commonwealth’s Work Health and Safety Regulations 2011. The states that adopted the model laws use the same numbers with local changes, Victoria runs its own OHS law, and the regulator where the work happens is the authority.

Which WHS registers are legally required

How a register entry should work

Every register on that list fails the same way: the entry goes in late, or never gets closed. A register written up on Friday from memory is a reconstruction. Write the row on the day, decide straight away whether it goes further (a regulator, an insurer, a red tag), and give anything that needs doing a name and a date.

Hazardous chemicals register and safety data sheets

Regulation 346 requires a person conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU) to prepare a register of hazardous chemicals used, handled or stored at the workplace, keep it there and keep it up to date. It must list the chemicals, include the current safety data sheet for each, and be readily accessible to workers who handle them and anyone else likely to be affected.

Safe Work Australia’s hazardous chemicals register page fills in the edges. Only chemicals classified as hazardous go on it. Consumer products you don’t need a safety data sheet for can stay off, as can chemicals in transit that are unopened, unused and stored for five days or less, unless they turn up in large amounts or often. The register must be easy to use and available to workers and emergency services at any time.

Regulation 344 covers the sheets themselves. You must get the current safety data sheet from the manufacturer, importer or supplier when a hazardous chemical is first supplied (and before anyone uses it), and the amended version when the sheet changes. A chemical counts as first supplied if you haven’t had it in the previous five years. Above a schedule 11 chemical’s manifest quantity, regulation 347 adds a manifest and regulation 348 a written notice to the regulator. An electronic register is fine if every worker who needs it can reach it, with a plan for power and network failures (WorkSafe WA). The usual failure is a 2015 sheet in the folder an emergency crew opens first.

Register of injuries: workers compensation law, state by state

The register of injuries usually comes from workers compensation law, not the WHS Act, and its contents depend on the state.

NSW. SIRA’s page on what to do if a worker is injured calls it a mandatory record of all work-related injuries or illnesses, whether or not a claim is made, on paper or electronic. Each entry must include the worker’s name, address, age, occupation and industry at the time of injury, the time and date, and the nature and cause of the injury. There are penalties for not keeping one, and the insurer must be told within 48 hours.

Victoria. WorkSafe Victoria’s claims manual on employer obligations puts the register under section 17 of the Workplace Injury Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 2013. It must be readily available to workers at all reasonable times, and records the worker’s name and occupation, time and date, exact location, how it happened, the nature of the injury and body parts affected, witnesses, the date of the entry and who made it. The employer must also acknowledge a notice of injury in writing.

Queensland. WorkSafe Queensland’s workers compensation page says employers need an injury reporting system and should record all injuries and illnesses, even minor ones. Its register list adds the task being performed, steps taken to prevent a repeat, and sign-off by the injured worker (if possible) and their supervisor. WorkCover Queensland must be told within eight business days.

Elsewhere, check your state’s workers compensation regulator. A national business is better off with the union of all three lists, as in the template below, plus the employer on every row, because with labour hire on site it is often not the site’s.

Notifiable incident records: five years

Section 38(7) of the WHS Act requires a PCBU to keep a record of each notifiable incident for at least five years from the day the regulator was notified. What counts as notifiable and who to ring in each state are in our guide to incident reports and notifiable incidents. A “notifiable” column and the regulator’s reference number on the injury register save keeping two lists in step.

Test and tag register: electrical equipment

The legal trigger for testing is the environment, not the tool. Regulation 150 requires electrical equipment to be regularly inspected and tested by a competent person if it plugs into a socket outlet and is used where normal use exposes it to damage or a shorter life, including moisture, heat, vibration, mechanical damage, corrosive chemicals or dust. That describes most sites, workshops and wash bays. New, unused equipment only needs an inspection for obvious damage before use, and regulation 151 says equipment due for testing that hasn’t been tested is not to be used.

The record must name the tester and show the date, the outcome and when the next test is due. It may be the tag on the lead, and it is kept until the item is next tested or removed for good. SafeWork NSW’s guidance points to AS/NZS 3760 for testing and tagging methods and frequency, and to AS/NZS 3012 for construction and demolition sites, which regulation 163 makes construction businesses comply with. Residual current devices fall under regulation 165: tested regularly by a competent person, with every test except the daily push-button check recorded until the next one.

Queensland’s WHS Regulation leaves numbers 145 to 166 unused and Victoria has its own law, so check local electrical safety rules there.

Plant records and the asbestos register

Plant gets its own statutory records only when it has to be registered. Regulation 237 (read in Queensland’s regulation, which carries the model numbers) requires the person with management or control of registered plant to record every test, inspection, maintenance job, commissioning, decommissioning, dismantling and alteration, keep it while the plant is used or until they give up control, and pass it on. The rest of your plant is covered in the plant risk assessment guide, which has a plant register workbook of its own.

The asbestos register is the one a spreadsheet should not be trusted to create. Regulation 425 requires the person with management or control of a workplace to keep a register of any asbestos or asbestos-containing material identified or likely to be present, with the date found and its location, type and condition, or a statement that none was identified. Under regulation 422, identification is done by a competent person so far as is reasonably practicable, and suspect material that can’t be identified is assumed to be asbestos. The register is reviewed when asbestos is found, removed or disturbed, and passed on when control changes. In the model regulations it doesn’t apply to a building constructed after 31 December 2003 with no asbestos identified or likely. Queensland’s cut-off is 31 December 1989. Get a competent assessor in and file their register.

Hazard register: good practice, not a named law

No regulation we read requires a document called a hazard register. The law requires hazards to be identified and their risks managed, and the register is how you show it. WorkSafe Tasmania’s record keeping page says to keep the identified hazards, assessed risks and chosen controls, the hazards and near misses workers report, and how and when controls were put in place and reviewed. It suggests a review about once a year, sooner after an incident or a change, and says not to overwrite old versions.

A row earns its place with a risk rating, a control, an owner and a due date. A list of hazards without those is a catalogue. Feed it from the prestart, read the open rows out at the next toolbox talk, and the crew stops treating it as office paperwork.

Training, licence and induction records

• High risk work licences. Regulation 85 bars a PCBU from directing or allowing high risk work without seeing written evidence of the licence, and requires a record of that evidence for at least a year after the work. The high risk work licence check covers verifying one in each state.
• Construction induction. Regulations 316 and 317 require general construction induction training before construction work and the card (or a certification from the last 60 days while it is pending). The site-specific layer is in the site induction checklist.
• First aid and emergency plans. Regulation 42 requires first aid equipment and enough trained first aiders, regulation 43 an emergency plan that is prepared, maintained and implemented. Neither is a register, but first aid certificate expiry dates belong in your training records.

Download the free WHS registers template

Download the Humanz WHS registers template (Excel, .xlsx). No sign-up, no email gate. It opens in any current version of Excel and imports into Google Sheets (File, then Import).

A spreadsheet is the fallback, not how we would run this. Humanz is a workforce management app, and in the app injury, incident and hazard reports are digital forms filled in on a phone at the scene, timestamped and stored against the site and the people involved, plant and equipment sit in an asset register with service date reminders, and licences carry expiry alerts. We publish this template anyway, free and with no sign-up, because a good sheet beats a blank page and not every crew is ready for software. If yours is, see how Humanz runs site paperwork.

What’s in it

• Hazardous chemicals register. Product, manufacturer or supplier, location, quantity, safety data sheet date and where it is kept, hazard classification and pictograms, controls, and who reviewed the row and when. A sheet dated more than five years ago turns amber as a prompt to check it is current.
• Register of injuries. The NSW, Victorian and Queensland fields in one row: worker and employer, date and time, location and task, how it happened, injury and body parts, witnesses, treatment, date reported, notifiable or not, insurer and regulator notified, prevention steps and sign-offs.
• Test and tag register. Asset ID, description, location, test date, tester, result, next test due and tag colour if your site uses one. Frequencies are left for you to set, and an overdue test turns red.
• Hazard register. Date raised, location, hazard, raised by, a risk rating drop-down, control, owner, due date and status, with overdue open rows in red.
• How to use. One page, including what the workbook does not do.

What it does not do, plainly: there is no asbestos sheet, because that register comes from a competent person’s inspection, and the workbook doesn’t classify chemicals, decide what is notifiable or set test intervals. It is not legal or safety advice.

Where paper registers fall over, and what Humanz changes

Registers are fine on the day they are set up. The trouble starts on the third site, when the injury register is a book in one site office, the test and tag list is on the sparky’s laptop, and the hazard register is a spreadsheet emailed around as “FINAL v3”.

Humanz doesn’t keep a chemical database, test equipment, identify asbestos or decide what is notifiable, doesn’t use AI to fill in or assess anything, and doesn’t give safety or legal advice. It changes capture and follow-through. The custom form builder turns the injury and hazard registers into phone forms with mandatory questions, conditional sections, and photo and signature capture, usable offline. Asset tracking holds plant and equipment with maintenance intervals set per asset, service alerts and out-of-service flagging. Licences and first aid certificates carry expiry alerts, and compliance gates stop a lapsed ticket being rostered. Safety data sheets and the assessor’s asbestos register can sit in the document portal with version control.

Frequently asked questions

What registers does a business need to keep for WHS?

Most Australian businesses need a register of injuries under workers compensation law, a hazardous chemicals register with current safety data sheets if hazardous chemicals are on site, and a record of each notifiable incident kept for at least five years. Electrical equipment used in harsh conditions needs test records, registered plant needs maintenance and inspection records, and a workplace that may contain asbestos needs an asbestos register.

Is a hazardous chemicals register a legal requirement?

Yes, for any business that uses, handles or stores hazardous chemicals. Under the model WHS Regulations it must list each hazardous chemical with its current safety data sheet, be kept at the workplace and up to date, and be readily accessible to workers and anyone else likely to be affected. Consumer products that need no safety data sheet, and unopened chemicals in transit stored for five days or less, can be left off.

What is an SDS register?

An SDS register is the common name for the hazardous chemicals register, the list of hazardous chemicals at a workplace kept with the current safety data sheet for each one. Under the model WHS Regulations a business must get the current safety data sheet from the manufacturer, importer or supplier when a hazardous chemical is first supplied, and the amended version when it changes. The sheets must be readily accessible to workers who handle the chemical and to emergency service workers likely to be exposed.

What must a register of injuries include?

It depends on the state, because the requirement usually comes from workers compensation law. In NSW each entry records the worker’s name, address, age, occupation and industry, the time and date, and the nature and cause of the injury. Victoria adds the exact location, how it happened, witnesses and who made the entry.

How long do you keep test and tag records?

Under the model WHS Regulations, a test record for electrical equipment used in a hostile operating environment is kept until the item is next tested or permanently removed or disposed of. It must show the tester, the date, the outcome and the next test date, and the tag can be the record. Queensland’s WHS Regulation does not carry these provisions and Victoria has its own OHS law, so check the local rules there.

Is a hazard register a legal requirement?

No regulation names a hazard register, but the law requires hazards to be identified and their risks controlled, and a register is the usual evidence. WorkSafe Tasmania recommends recording identified hazards, assessed risks, chosen controls and when they were reviewed. A useful one gives every hazard a risk rating, a control, an owner and a due date.

Who needs an asbestos register?

The person with management or control of a workplace needs an asbestos register unless the building was constructed after 31 December 2003 and no asbestos has been identified or is likely to be present. Queensland uses an earlier cut-off of 31 December 1989, and domestic premises are excluded. The register records any asbestos identified by a competent person, with the date it was found and its location, type and condition, or states that none was identified.