Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2016L00410:body:0:p5
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2016L00410
Segment Type: other
Provision Reference: 
Character Range: 10452–13333

as is reasonably practicable. Further guidance on managing risks for construction projects and principal contractor duties is available in the Code of Practice: Construction Work.
A person conducting a business or undertaking who commissions a design or construction work or a construction project is referred to in this Code as the 'client'.

1.3         What is 'reasonably practicable' in relation to the designer's duty?
The duty of a person conducting a business or undertaking to ensure health and safety is qualified by what is reasonably practicable. Deciding what is 'reasonably practicable' requires taking into account and weighing up all relevant matters including:

    * the likelihood of the hazard or the risk occurring
    * the degree of harm that might result from the hazard or the risk
    * knowledge about the hazard or risk, and ways of eliminating or minimising the risk
    * the availability and suitability of ways to eliminate or minimise the risk, and
    * after assessing the extent of the risk and the available ways of eliminating or minimising the risk, the cost associated with eliminating or minimising the risk, including whether the cost is grossly disproportionate to the risk.
For example, in deciding what is reasonably practicable, consideration will be given to the prevailing standards of design and the hazards and risks known at the time the designer designed the structure.
In the process of designing structures it will not always be possible to clearly delineate who has responsibility, and in which circumstances, for the elimination or minimisation of hazards associated with the structure. The duties may be concurrent and overlapping.
Section 16: Where more than one person has a duty for the same matter, each person retains responsibility for their duty and must discharge it to the extent to which the person has the capacity to influence or control the matter or would have had that capacity but for an agreement or arrangement claiming to limit or remove that capacity.
While designers may not have management and control over the actual construction work they can discharge their duty by consulting, co-operating and co-ordinating activities, where reasonably practicable, with those who do have management or control of the construction work, for example by:
    * applying risk management processes to more traditional designs and considering whether new or innovative approaches to design will eliminate or minimise risk and result in an intrinsically safer building or structure
    * providing information of any identified hazards arising from an unconventional design to those who will construct or use the building
    * providing guidance on how a structure might be constructed safely
    * carrying out the above in collaboration with those who have expertise in construction safety.
A designer may be asked to