Does a SWMS have to cover manual handling?
Not as a stand-alone requirement. A safe work method statement is required before any high risk construction work starts, and the list of high risk construction work in the regulations does not include manual tasks as such. But the way materials reach a roof, a trench, a scaffold or a demolition skip is part of how that high risk work is done, so the manual handling controls for those activities belong in the SWMS. Outside high risk work, the duty to manage hazardous manual tasks still applies through risk assessment, safe work procedures, toolbox talks and consultation with the people doing the work. A SWMS that says 'use correct lifting technique' has not controlled anything.
Last reviewed September 2026 · Applies to the Manual Handling Training for Construction and Trades Workers course.
What a SWMS is and when one is required
A safe work method statement is a document that a business must prepare before its workers carry out high risk construction work. It identifies the high risk work, the hazards and risks that come with it, and the control measures that will be used, and it describes how those controls are put in place, monitored and reviewed. It must be kept available on site, followed by the workers doing the task, and reviewed when things change or when it is found not to be working.
The work health and safety regulations list the activities that count as high risk construction work. They include work with a risk of a fall of more than 2 m, work in or near a trench or shaft deeper than 1.5 m, tilt-up and precast concrete work, structural alterations that need temporary support, demolition, work in or near a confined space, work near powered mobile plant, work on or near energised electrical installations, and work near roads or rail. Manual tasks are not on that list.
Victoria, which operates under its own Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 rather than the model laws, also requires a SWMS for high risk construction work under its regulations, with a very similar list. The terminology for manual tasks there is 'hazardous manual handling', but the practical position is the same: the SWMS is triggered by the high risk activity, and the handling within it must be controlled.
Where manual handling fits in a SWMS
Almost every item on the high risk list involves moving materials. Roof sheets and battens have to get onto a roof where there is a fall risk. Pipe, bedding and shoring have to get into a trench. Precast panels have to be propped and braced with heavy props. Demolition produces rubble that someone shovels, barrows and lifts into a skip. Formwork and scaffold components are carried and passed at height. The handling is part of the high risk work, not a separate task that happens beside it.
So a SWMS for fixing a roof should say how the sheets get up there — crane, hoist or conveyor rather than carried up a ladder — and how they are moved along the roof. A SWMS for a trench should say how pipe and bedding are lowered rather than passed down by hand from the edge. A SWMS for demolition should name the machine-mounted breaker and the chute or skip placement that keeps hand carrying to a minimum. These are manual handling controls, and they belong in the same document as the fall protection and the shoring.
This is also where the White Card and manual handling training meet the SWMS. General construction induction teaches that SWMS exist and must be followed; manual handling training gives you the knowledge to recognise when the handling controls in a SWMS are missing or generic; the SWMS itself is the employer's specific plan for that job.
- Roofing: how sheets, battens and insulation reach and move along the roof
- Trenches: how pipe, bedding and shoring are lowered rather than passed by hand
- Precast and tilt-up: prop and brace weights, crew numbers, mechanical placement
- Demolition: machine breaking, chutes, skip placement, barrow routes
- Scaffold and formwork: passing components at height, team sizes, hoists
Outside high risk work: procedures, toolbox talks and consultation
The duty to manage hazardous manual tasks does not depend on a SWMS. Under the regulations, a business must identify hazardous manual tasks, assess the risk where it is not already known, control it so far as is reasonably practicable using the hierarchy of controls, and review the controls. On a house at framing stage, most manual handling — timber, sheet flooring, bagged products, bricks — happens outside any high risk work, and the controls live in a risk assessment, a safe work procedure or simply the way the job is planned and the deliveries are booked.
Toolbox talks and pre-starts are where those controls become real for the crew. A pre-start that says which deliveries are coming, where they will be landed, who is on the two-person carries and when the hoist is available is doing manual handling risk management, whether or not anyone calls it that. Consultation is also a legal duty: workers who do the task must have a genuine say in the controls, directly or through their health and safety representative, and a SWMS written in the office without them is unlikely to reflect how the work is actually done.
If the SWMS or procedure names a control that is not on site — the panel lifter has gone to another job, the crane truck cannot get in — the task should stop and the document should be reviewed properly, not worked around on the day.
What a good manual handling control looks like, what this course covers, and where the employer's duty starts
A useful control in a SWMS is specific enough to check. 'Sheets craned to each floor; panel lifter for all ceilings; two-person carry for any sheet over 2.4 m' can be checked at the pre-start. 'Use correct manual handling technique' cannot, and it puts the whole risk back on the worker's spine. The hierarchy of controls asks first whether the handling can be eliminated or done by a machine, then whether the load can be lighter, then what aids and crew numbers reduce the remaining risk, and only last what the worker should do with their body.
Module 2, Australian Work Health and Safety Principles, explains who holds which duty on a multi-employer site, where SWMS and site rules fit and how consultation works. Module 4, Risk Assessment and Risk Controls, works through the hierarchy with site examples and covers when a SWMS or procedure should be reviewed.
Writing the SWMS, providing the controls it names and making sure it is followed are the duties of your employer and, for co-ordination across the site, the principal contractor. Your duty is to follow it and to raise it when it does not match the job. This course gives you the knowledge to tell the difference between a control and a slogan.
This course is non-accredited online workplace training that issues a Certificate of Completion. It is not a White Card, not a high risk work licence and not the HLTWHS005 unit, and it does not provide a Statement of Attainment. Your employer's site induction, SWMS briefings and practical instruction on the aids and plant you will actually use always take precedence over a general course.
Common questions
Sources
- Safe Work Australia — Model Code of Practice: Hazardous manual tasks — The national code the state and territory regulators adopt or mirror.
- Safe Work Australia — Lifting, pushing and pulling (manual tasks)
- Safe Work Australia — Construction work Code of Practice
General information about Australian work health and safety duties, not legal advice. Your employer’s procedures and the regulator in your state take precedence.
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