Site Safe Passport Study Guide (NZ) 2026

The Site Safe Passport and Site Safety Card

Site Safe runs health and safety training for the New Zealand construction industry. Its Foundation courses are for people new to construction. The best known is Passport - Building Construction. Other Foundation Passport courses cover civil, horticulture and consultants.

Point	Passport - Building Construction
Length	Half a day
Formats	Classroom, online or VR
Languages	Online: English or Simplified Chinese. Classroom and VR: English (interpreter may be arranged)
Check at the end	Review of Understanding: multiple-choice questions
What you get	Site Safety Card with a green foundation indicator, valid for 2 years
Renewal	Another Site Safe course every 2 years, usually a Passport Plus course

Most major New Zealand contractors ask for a valid card before you can enter their sites.

The course covers keeping yourself healthy and safe on site, spotting hazards and applying controls, your legal duties, mental health, safety self-checks, noise, manual handling and working near mobile plant.

The Health and Safety at Work Act 2015

The Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 (HSWA) is New Zealand's main workplace health and safety law. WorkSafe New Zealand is the main regulator. The law calls a business a PCBU: a person conducting a business or undertaking.

The PCBU's primary duty of care

The business has the primary duty of care. It must ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety of its workers and other workers it influences or directs. It must also make sure visitors, customers and the public are not put at risk by its work. This includes:

A work environment without health and safety risks, including physical factors (noise, dust, heat) and psychological factors (stress, fatigue, drugs and alcohol)
Safe plant, structures and systems of work
Safe use, handling and storage of plant and substances
Good welfare facilities
Information, training, instruction and supervision
Monitoring of workers' health and workplace conditions

When several businesses share a site, their duties overlap and they must work together. Officers, such as directors, must exercise due diligence so the business works safely.

Penalties

Offence	Worker (maximum)	Organisation (maximum)
s 47 Reckless conduct	5 years' prison or $300,000, or both	$3 million
s 48 Failing a duty and exposing someone to serious risk	$150,000	$1.5 million
s 49 Failing a duty	$50,000	$500,000

Your rights and duties as a worker

Your rights

Work where risks are properly controlled
Toilets, washing facilities and first aid
Enough training, information and support to work safely
A say in health and safety decisions
Personal protective equipment (PPE)
Ask for a health and safety representative (HSR) or committee
Stop or refuse work that would expose you or others to a serious risk from an immediate or imminent hazard

If you stop work, tell the business as soon as you can and try to sort it out together. If you still cannot agree, you can ask WorkSafe for help. It is against the law for anyone to punish you for raising a health and safety concern.

Your duties

Take reasonable care of your own health and safety
Make sure what you do (or do not do) does not harm others
Follow reasonable instructions, policies and procedures

An HSR is a worker elected by their work group to represent them on health and safety. You can also raise concerns through a workmate or your union.

Managing risks: the hierarchy of controls

Risk has two parts: the likelihood that harm will happen and the consequence (how bad the harm could be). Deal first with risks that could cause serious harm or are likely to happen. The first step is always to identify the risks, and workers should be asked for their ideas.

HSWA says a risk must be eliminated so far as is reasonably practicable. If it cannot be eliminated, it must be minimised. Work down the hierarchy of controls, from most to least effective:

Level	Type of control	Example
1	Elimination	Remove a trip risk; get faulty equipment repaired
2	Substitution, isolation, engineering	Use quieter machinery; fit barriers; fit guards to machines
3	Administrative	Safe work procedures; exclusion zones; emergency plans
4	PPE	Hard hats, hearing protection, gloves (least effective)

Wear a hard hat
Wear hearing protection
Wear high-visibility clothing
Wear safety footwear

Review controls at set times and whenever something changes, such as new equipment, a new process or more work. Look at incidents and near misses to check controls are working. Health monitoring checks for harm, but it is not a control measure. Paperwork does not replace good controls.

Notifiable events

The business must make sure WorkSafe is told about notifiable events as soon as possible, by the fastest means, even if emergency services came. There are three kinds:

A death arising from the work
A notifiable injury or illness, such as hospital admission as an inpatient, amputation of any body part, a serious head or eye injury, a serious burn, a spinal injury or loss of consciousness
A notifiable incident, an unplanned event that seriously endangers people, such as a structure or excavation collapse, a fall of plant or materials from height, a fire or explosion, or a gas leak

Phone 0800 030 040 at once to report a death (24/7); in an emergency call 111 first. Other events are notified online. A crash while driving to work in your own car is not notifiable, because it is not part of the work.

Do not disturb the site until an inspector says work can resume, except to help an injured person, remove a person who has died, make the site safe, follow Police directions or with WorkSafe's permission. Keep records of notifiable events for at least 5 years.