Where the project is for the construction, repair or restoration of a single-dwelling house or houses, the head contractor builder is not required to be accredited under the Work Health and Safety Accreditation Scheme (the Scheme) to obtain Commonwealth funding.
A ‘single-dwelling house’ is defined as any Class 1a building under the National Construction Code (NCC):
- This generally includes detached stand-alone houses or one of a group of attached dwellings such as duplexes, terrace houses, row houses and town houses.
- Residential developments that involve dwellings that are above and below each other will not be considered to be single-dwelling houses (such as apartments).
Where attached dwellings have a common space below (such as a common parking garage underneath the building or common basement), the building will be regarded as a Class 2 building under the National Construction Code building classifications and therefore will not fall under the single-dwelling house exemption. A common space is defined as:
- accessible by residents from more than one dwelling in the residential development;
- any parking garage that is not a private garage (that is, carparking within a building for the use of residents from more than one dwelling).
Only Class 1a buildings are single-dwellings exempted from the application of the Scheme.
More information on the definition of a Class 1a building can be found on the Australian Building Codes Board website in Chapter A6, Building Classification - NCC 2022 Volume Two - Building Code of Australia Class 1 and 10 buildings.
There is no limit to the number of single-dwelling houses on which building work is occurring for this exemption to apply.