Explainer: How working at height rules evolved in NZ

WorkSafe has rewritten its guidance for working at height, bringing one of New Zealand's most persistent workplace risks more clearly into the framework of the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015. The August 2026 guidance reinforces a central point that has developed over decades of regulation and enforcement: there is no height below which a fall risk can simply be ignored. 

Old threshold

Working at height has long been associated with construction, roofing and scaffolding. The risk extends much further. Maintenance workers, window cleaners, painters, heating and ventilation installers and industrial inspection crews can all face fall hazards during routine work. Falls can also occur below ground level or through openings, as well as from roofs, ladders and elevated platforms. 

New Zealand's older regulatory framework helped create one of the most persistent misunderstandings about that risk.

The Health and Safety in Employment Regulations 1995 included a specific requirement covering situations where an employee could fall more than three metres. That provision became widely known as the "three-metre rule". The regulations remain part of New Zealand's workplace health and safety framework and continue to contain requirements dealing with height, scaffolding and other high-risk work. 

The three-metre provision was never intended to mean that falls below that distance were acceptable. Guidance produced under the earlier Health and Safety in Employment Act explicitly warned that the interpretation was wrong. Broader legal duties already required employers to act where shorter falls could cause harm. 

That distinction matters because relatively modest falls can have severe consequences. A 2017 prosecution followed a worker's 2.8-metre fall from an unprotected roof, through a glass table and on to concrete. WorkSafe found there had been no fall protection and inadequate training and instruction. 

The new guidance makes the position more direct. Working at height means working somewhere a worker could fall and be hurt, injured or killed if precautions are not taken. There is no minimum height threshold. Any fall risk must be managed. WorkSafe goes further by recommending that a potential fall of more than one metre should be controlled with physical barriers or fall restraint. 

Campaign shift

The modern approach grew partly from evidence about the scale and circumstances of construction falls.

A Department of Labour study published in 2012 examined serious-harm investigation files from 2007 to 2009. It reviewed 340 accident cases involving 342 people, including nine fatal cases. Most of the files examined involved falls from height. 

Temporary structures were a recurring feature. Falls involving ladders, trestles and scaffolds represented close to half of the cases examined, and ladders accounted for more than half of falls in that temporary-structure group. Five of the nine fatal cases involved a fall from a temporary structure. 

The findings helped inform a more concentrated national effort on falls. The Preventing Falls from Heights campaign began in 2012 and was accompanied by best-practice guidance aimed at changing how construction businesses planned and controlled work. 

Early results suggested practices were changing. WorkSafe's 2013-14 annual report cited a 25 per cent reduction in falls from height in construction while describing the programme as beginning to have an effect. Later government work also concluded that changes in industry practice following the campaign had produced a significant impact. 

The campaign also helped shift attention away from simply asking how high a worker would be and towards asking whether the work could be organised so the worker did not face the fall in the first place.

Legal reset

A wider overhaul of New Zealand workplace safety regulation followed.

The Independent Taskforce on Workplace Health and Safety concluded in 2013 that the country's workplace health and safety system was failing. The subsequent reforms produced WorkSafe and the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015, which became the central piece of New Zealand workplace health and safety legislation. 

The change affected far more than terminology. HSWA broadened the focus from the traditional employer-employee relationship to people and organisations able to create, influence or control work risks. It introduced the person conducting a business or undertaking, or PCBU, as a central duty holder. Officers, workers and other people at workplaces also have duties. 

That structure is particularly relevant on construction sites, where a client, principal contractor, builder, scaffolder, roofer and specialist subcontractors can be involved in the same project. Health and safety responsibilities cannot simply be passed down a contracting chain. PCBUs with overlapping duties need to consult, co-operate and co-ordinate where their work affects the same risks. 

For working at height, the practical effect is that fall protection is not just a matter for the person standing on a roof or ladder. Decisions about design, scheduling, equipment, access, contracting and supervision can determine whether the risk exists before the worker reaches the job.

The 2026 guide brings the older working-at-height material more clearly into this HSWA structure. It covers PCBU duties, worker duties, overlapping responsibilities, worker engagement and the meaning of what is "reasonably practicable". 

Control order

The updated guidance also places greater emphasis on the order in which controls should be considered.

Elimination comes first. For height work, that can mean assembling wall frames or roof trusses at ground level, pre-painting roof sheets before installation or locating equipment where future servicing does not require workers to climb. Inspection can sometimes be carried out using ground-based technology rather than sending a person to an exposed edge. 

Where elimination is not reasonably practicable, businesses move through lower levels of the control hierarchy. Substitution can include using a mobile elevating work platform rather than a ladder. Isolation can involve keeping people away from a fall hazard. Engineering controls include edge protection and safety mesh. Procedures and training sit lower in the hierarchy, while personal protective equipment is treated as the last line of defence. 

That ordering addresses a recurring weakness in height safety: relying too heavily on the worker to make the correct decision at the moment something goes wrong.

A harness can be essential in some situations, but it does not automatically make a job safe. Harness systems require suitable anchors, correct configuration, adequate fall clearance, inspection, training and a rescue plan. The updated guidance states that edge protection and scaffolding are strongly preferred over harness-based systems where they are reasonably practicable. 

The guide also gives safety decking a distinct place among working-at-height controls. Decking can provide a working surface below an upper level, remove open fall zones and provide clearer access between levels. Installation should follow the manufacturer's instructions and be undertaken by a trained, competent person. 

This sits alongside established controls such as scaffolding, temporary edge protection, mechanical access plant, safety mesh, safety nets, temporary work platforms and roof ladders. The choice depends on the task and site rather than a single preferred item of equipment. 

Worker input

The updated approach also gives more weight to the people carrying out the work.

HSWA requires PCBUs to engage with workers on health and safety matters that directly affect them and to provide reasonable opportunities for participation. The new height guidance applies that principle throughout the risk-management process. Workers and their representatives should be involved when hazards are identified, risks are assessed, controls are chosen and those controls are reviewed. 

That can be important on changing construction sites. A control that worked during one stage of a project may become unsuitable once access routes, roof conditions, weather, other contractors or the sequence of work changes.

Competency is treated in similarly practical terms. The guide defines a competent person as someone with the skills, knowledge, training and experience necessary for the task. Untrained workers require supervision by a competent person. Initial training should occur before workers start the relevant work and during induction, while refresher training may be needed. WorkSafe recommends refresher training every two years. 

Emergency arrangements are part of that preparation. The guidance recommends documented rescue plans with people on site trained to carry them out. This is particularly significant when harnesses or other fall-arrest systems are used. Preventing a worker from striking the ground is only one part of managing a fall if the worker is then left suspended and needs to be recovered. 

Notification lines

The rewritten guidance also separates two notification duties that can be confused.

Some hazardous work must be reported to WorkSafe before it begins. A PCBU controlling the workplace must provide at least 24 hours' notice for specified high-risk activities. These include some construction work where a person could fall five metres or more, subject to defined exclusions. Erecting or dismantling scaffolding where someone could fall five metres or more can also trigger notification requirements. 

This five-metre notification trigger does not create a five-metre safety threshold. A job can require fall controls even when it does not need advance notification. The same principle applies to the older three-metre provision: a numerical trigger for a particular regulatory requirement does not remove the wider duty to manage a foreseeable fall risk. 

Notifiable events are different. WorkSafe must be notified as soon as possible when specified serious work-related events occur. These include a death, a notifiable injury or illness, or an incident that seriously endangers or threatens someone's health or safety. 

The continuing importance of those duties is visible in construction's harm profile. WorkSafe says construction employs about 10 per cent of New Zealand workers but accounts for about 15 per cent of work-related fatalities and serious injuries. The regulator records about nine to 10 construction deaths a year and identifies falls from height as a persistent source of harm in residential construction. 

Recent cases show familiar failures rather than unfamiliar hazards. In one 2023 incident that led to sentencing in 2025, a worker with only two months in the job fell six metres from a commercial roof. He had no experience or formal training in working at height, and WorkSafe found limited edge protection and no adequate alternative harness controls. The worker suffered a traumatic brain injury and multiple fractures. 

The history of New Zealand's approach to working at height is therefore less about steadily raising technical requirements than about removing ambiguity around responsibility. The old three-metre rule did not make shorter falls safe. The 2012 campaign pushed industry towards prevention. HSWA placed responsibility on those who create and control work risks. The latest guidance draws those strands together, with greater emphasis on planning, physical controls, competent workers, consultation and clear notification duties.