Manual Handling Training for Construction and Trades Workers in Western Australia
Online manual handling training for people working on building, civil and resources construction across Perth, Bunbury, Geraldton, Kalgoorlie and regional WA. Western Australia moved to the model work health and safety laws only in 2022, so many workers and procedures are still adjusting to new terminology, and the state's construction stretches from Perth's housing and infrastructure to mine, port and processing plant construction thousands of kilometres from the nearest depot. This course explains the manual handling risks of that work and the controls that reduce them under the framework administered by WorkSafe WA, and it is separate from the White Card.
Last reviewed September 2026 · Applies to the Manual Handling Training for Construction and Trades Workers course.
Another industry? Manual handling training in Western Australia covers every industry.
Construction and trades in Western Australia
Western Australia's construction is unusually split between two worlds. In Perth and the south-west, housing, apartments, commercial buildings and transport infrastructure look much like construction anywhere in the country. In the Pilbara, the Goldfields, the Mid West and the Kimberley, construction serves the resources industry: iron ore and lithium mine infrastructure, gas processing, ports, camps and the civil work that connects them, mostly built by fly-in fly-out crews on long rosters.
Remote resources construction changes the manual handling calculation. Materials arrive on long supply lines, so a delivery landed in the wrong place is not easily re-done and double handling is common. An aid that was not mobilised to site cannot be borrowed, and a second person for a team lift may be committed elsewhere. Heat in the north for much of the year and cold, wet winters in the south add fatigue and grip problems at opposite ends of the state.
Perth's residential sector adds its own pressures: volume housing in the northern and south-eastern corridors, double-brick construction that means more bricks and mortar per house than in most states, and a summer that starts early and finishes late.
WorkSafe WA and the Work Health and Safety Act 2020 (WA)
Western Australia was the last jurisdiction to move across to the model laws. It passed its version in November 2020, and they became operational on 31 March 2022, replacing the previous Occupational Safety and Health Act 1984. Work health and safety is now administered by WorkSafe WA under the Work Health and Safety Act 2020 (WA), with separate sets of regulations for general workplaces, for mines and for petroleum and geothermal operations under the same Act.
The change matters on site because longer-serving WA workers were trained and wrote their procedures under the older framework, and the language of hazardous manual tasks, SWMS for high risk construction work and PCBUs is still new to some employers. Codes of practice on hazardous manual tasks and on construction work have been approved under the new Act, and the duties are the national ones: identify hazardous manual tasks, control the risk so far as is reasonably practicable, consult workers, and prepare a SWMS before high risk construction work begins.
Construction on a WA mine site falls under the mines regulations made under the same Act, so the same duties apply with additional mining-specific requirements and the operator's own safety management system layered on top.
The White Card and the other training you need in WA
General construction induction training — the White Card — is a legal requirement before carrying out construction work in Western Australia, as it is in every state and territory. It is delivered by registered training organisations and cards from other states are recognised. It is a general induction and is separate from manual handling training; this course does not provide or replace it.
Resources projects add extensive site and operator inductions, and mine-site work has its own requirements. SWMS briefings for each high risk task and high risk work licences for plant are separate again. This course adds hazard-specific manual handling knowledge to all of them.
What this course covers for WA construction workers
The eight modules cover what makes a manual task hazardous, how Australian safety duties apply on a multi-employer site, identifying hazardous tasks, the hierarchy of controls, safe movement and team carries, materials, tools and site work, equipment and mechanical handling, and reporting. Module 2, Australian Work Health and Safety Principles, uses the model-law terminology that WA adopted in 2022, which is useful for workers whose earlier training was under the 1984 Act. Module 6 covers bricks and blocks in detail, along with heat, weather and planning the lift before the truck arrives.
The training and the 20-question assessment are free to complete; you pay A$49 only if you pass and want the Certificate of Completion. 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
- WorkSafe WA
- 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.
Ready to start?
Work through the construction & trades course and the assessment at your own pace. You only pay A$49 if you pass and want the certificate.
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