Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2016L00412:body:0:p2
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2016L00412
Segment Type: other
Provision Reference: 
Character Range: 2620–5392

cover all hazards
or risks which may arise. The health and safety duties require duty holders to consider all risks associated with work, not only those for which regulations and codes of practice exist.
Codes of practice are admissible in court proceedings under the WHS Act and Regulations.
Courts may regard a code of practice as evidence of what is known about a hazard, risk
or control and may rely on the code in determining what is reasonably practicable in the circumstances to which the code relates.
Compliance with the WHS Act and Regulations may be achieved by following another method, such as a technical or an industry standard, if it provides an equivalent or higher standard of work health and safety than the code.
An inspector may refer to an approved code of practice when issuing an improvement or prohibition notice.
This Code of Practice has been developed by Safe Work Australia as a model code of practice under the Council of Australian Governments' Inter-Governmental Agreement for Regulatory
and Operational Reform in Occupational Health and Safety for adoption by the Commonwealth, state and territory governments.

Scope and application
This Code provides practical guidance for persons conducting a business or undertaking on how
to manage health and safety risks associated with spray painting or powder coating processes. This Code applies to all workplaces covered by the WHS Act where spray painting or powder coating activities are carried out and to all persons involved in these activities.

How to use this code of practice
In providing guidance, the word 'should' is used in this Code to indicate a recommended course
of action, while 'may' is used to indicate an optional course of action.
This Code also includes various references to provisions of the WHS Act and Regulations which set out the legal requirements. These references are not exhaustive. The words 'must', 'requires' or 'mandatory' indicate that a legal requirement exists and must be complied with.

1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 What are spray painting and powder coating?
Spray painting including electrostatic spray painting, is a process by which liquid paint is applied under pressure to an object. Spray painting may be carried out by hand or automatically. There
are several methods used to atomise the paint for spraying:
    * using a conventional air compressor – air is driven across the mouth of a small outlet under pressure to draw liquid paint out of the container and produce an air-paint mist from the nozzle of the spray-gun
    * airless spray painting – the paint container is pressurised pushing the paint to the nozzle where it is atomised by the spray gun, or
    * electrostatic spray painting – an electric pump drives the electrostatically charged