Notify Workplace Health and Safety Queensland or the Electrical Safety Office
Once you've made sure that the people involved in an incident and the site of an incident are safe, the first step is to notify Workplace Health and Safety Queensland or the Electrical Safety Office.
How do I notify of an incident?
You can notify us of an incident by:
- phone – call us on 1300 362 128
- online – complete and submit an online incident notification form
- email – download and complete an incident notification form (PDF, 0.24 MB) and email it to whsq.aaa@oir.qld.gov.au
- fax – download and complete an incident notification form (PDF, 0.24 MB) and fax it to 07 3874 7730.
If you notify us of an incident by phone, written notification isn’t required. We'll give you details of the information received in writing that you can keep for your records.
You can confirm if an incident is notifiable by checking what incidents must be notified to Workplace Health and Safety Queensland and the Electrical Safety Office.
The business owner or employer – referred to in work health and safety laws and electrical safety laws as a person conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU) – must make sure that we're notified of an incident.
Anyone can notify us of an incident, but the PCBU is legally required to do so and there are penalties if they don't.
Electricity distribution entities must also notify us when they become aware of a serious electrical incident or dangerous electrical event, in addition to the notification that must be made by the PCBU.
You must notify us immediately after becoming aware that a notifiable incident has happened.
If an incident happens outside of business hours, you can still call us on 1300 362 128.
You'll be connected to our after-hours messaging service. Your notification details will be referred to an on-call inspector, who'll contact you within a time frame that has regard to the seriousness of the incident.
Yes. You must keep a record of a notifiable incident for at least five years from the date it was notified to us. The best way to do this is to keep a copy of the completed incident notification form. A record must be kept for each notifiable incident or event.
Penalties apply if you don’t notify us of an incident as soon as you're aware of it or keep a record of an incident for at least five years.
Learn more about penalties.
An injury claim to WorkCover Queensland or your workers' compensation insurer is not the same as notifying us of an incident. However, if you insure with WorkCover Queensland, you can do both at the same time.
Notifying us is in addition to any workers' compensation claim made to WorkCover Queensland or your workers’ compensation insurer if you’re a self-insured business. This is because we have different roles to play following an incident at your place of work.
WorkCover Queensland, and other workers' compensation insurers, provide financial compensation to people who've had a work-related injury. As Queensland’s work health and safety and electrical safety regulators, we investigate the cause of incidents notified to us. We use the information from these incident investigations to identify how similar incidents can be prevented in the future. We also use it to find solutions to safety issues in places of work across all industries.
Electricity distribution entities must notify us of a serious electrical incident or dangerous electrical event using the online incident notification form.
This form is for electricity distribution entities only.
They must also immediately notify us by phone, if it’s a serious electrical incident in which a person has been killed.