Summary
Duty of care is your legal obligation to take reasonable steps to protect the health and safety of everyone affected by your work. It applies to supervisors at all times — on shift, during handover, and when giving instructions.
What This Means on Shift
On shift, duty of care means you must actively identify hazards, ensure your team has the information and equipment they need, and intervene when you see unsafe behaviour. You cannot delegate your duty of care to someone else.
- You are responsible for the safety of everyone under your supervision
- You must act on hazards — reporting alone is not enough
- Giving an instruction does not remove your duty if the task is unsafe
- Duty of care applies even when you are not physically present at the work face
Where to Find It
The duty of care obligation for supervisors is set out in sections 9 and 10 of the Mines Safety and Inspection Act 1994. Section 9 covers the general duty of employers and supervisors. Section 10 covers the duty of employees.
- Mines Safety and Inspection Act 1994 – s.9 (employer/supervisor duty)
- Mines Safety and Inspection Act 1994 – s.10 (employee duty)
Key Points
The key things to remember about duty of care are: it is ongoing, it is personal, and it cannot be contracted out.
- Duty of care is ongoing — it does not switch off between tasks
- It is personal — you cannot pass it to someone else
- Reasonable steps must be taken — the standard is what a competent person would do
- Failure to meet duty of care can result in prosecution
- Both the company and the individual supervisor can be held liable