Height safety reform targets falls

Falls from height remain one of the most persistent causes of serious injury and death on our nation’s construction sites, with new data showing much of that harm could be avoided through better planning and equipment at the outset.

Reports say fall-related incidents still account for a disproportionate number of notifiable events reported to WorkSafe each year, many on residential builds where scaffolding, edge protection or netting was either absent or installed incorrectly.

The issue is squarely on the Government’s radar too. Amendments introduced to Parliament earlier this year aim to sharpen how workplace health and safety law is applied, shifting focus toward the hazards most likely to cause serious harm or death.

Falls from height sit firmly in that category, with the reforms expected to pass before Parliament rises later this year. For contractors, the message hasn’t changed: getting height safety right means addressing the risk statistically most likely to kill someone on site, not ticking a compliance box.

Industry figures repeatedly remind us that falls are rarely the result of a single failure, but of small gaps in a site’s overall protection strategy compounding under pressure. This is where a properly engineered fall arrest system earns its place in the conversation.

Personal fall arrest equipment such as harnesses and lanyards has long been the default response to working at height, but it carries an inherent weakness: it depends entirely on the worker correctly securing themselves, every time, to the right anchor point. Get that step wrong just once, and the system offers no protection at all. It’s this reliance on individual action, repeated across a build, that has pushed more contractors toward passive, collective protection instead.

Safety netting systems remove that dependence on individual action almost entirely. Rather than relying on a worker’s own vigilance, a well-designed net creates a continuous safety envelope around a site, catching a fall before it becomes a serious injury and doing so regardless of how many people are working above or below at any given time.

Quality netting is generally sourced to meet the European EN 1263-1 standard, made from a high-tensile, knotless polypropylene mesh engineered to sit flatter under load, shortening fall distance and reducing force on both the worker and the structure.

Because the system doesn’t depend on individual securing or supervision, crews can work above and below the net line simultaneously, sidestepping the stop-start disruption other fall protection methods often create. With regulators sharpening focus on exactly this risk, that combination is harder for contractors to ignore.

Sites still weighing up how to lift their height safety standards ahead of the reforms landing will find the case for building passive protection into the plan from day one keeps getting stronger. Don’t wait to fix it after something has gone wrong. Instead, get height safety right at the start.