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Queensland

Registering plant in Queensland: lifts, boilers and the 31 January expiry

In Queensland, each item of plant listed in Schedule 5, Part 2 of the Work Health and Safety Regulation 2011, among them boilers, pressure vessels, lifts and escalators, must be registered, and each registration expires on the 31 January first occurring after the day it was granted. The person with management or control of the item applies, and must make sure its registration number is marked on it.

General information, not legal or engineering advice. This is Queensland’s Work Health and Safety Regulation 2011, current as at 29 March 2026, with the offence from the Work Health and Safety Act 2011, current as at 3 August 2026. The regulator under those laws decides each application. This guide covers Queensland only.

A pair of empty escalators lit blue at night, rising beneath the angled white ribs of a large station roof.
Escalators are on the list. Photo by danm05 on Pixabay

The rule, and the reason for it

“An item of plant stated in schedule 5, part 2 must be registered under this part.”

The purpose of registering it is “to ensure that it is inspected by a competent person and is safe to operate.”

Work Health and Safety Regulation 2011 (Qld), section 246(1) and (2)

The offence sits in the Act. A person must not use plant at a workplace when a regulation requires it to be authorised and it is not, and the person conducting a business or undertaking must not, in turn, direct or allow a worker to use it. Each carries a maximum of 200 penalty units.

Two items step outside. Plant already registered under a corresponding WHS law needs no Queensland registration, and when the regulator licenses a major amusement park, the amusement devices at that park stop needing registration from the day the licence is granted.

The list, printed whole

Schedule 5, Part 2, section 3 names eight kinds of plant. Here they are in full, in plain words.

  1. 3.1Boilers in hazard level A, B or C, by the criteria in section 2.1 of AS 4343:2014.
  2. 3.2Pressure vessels in hazard level A, B or C by the same criteria, except gas cylinders, LP Gas fuel vessels for automotive use, and serially produced vessels.
  3. 3.3Tower cranes, self-erecting tower cranes included.
  4. 3.4Lifts, escalators and moving walkways, other than the lifts excepted in section 4(2).
  5. 3.5Building maintenance units.
  6. 3.6Amusement devices as classified under section 2.1 of AS 3533.1:2009, other than those excepted in section 4(3).
  7. 3.7Concrete placing booms.
  8. 3.8Mobile cranes, where the maximum rated capacity is more than 10 tonnes.

What section 4 takes out, also whole

Nothing in the list includes: pressure equipment, other than a gas cylinder, that is excluded from the scope of AS/NZS 1200:2015; a crane or hoist that is manually powered; or a reach stacker.

Two kinds of lift come out of item 3.4: “a lift installed in a class 1a building”, and “a lift installed in a sole-occupancy unit in a class 2 building, if the lift is used to access more than 1 level of the unit.” The second is conditional: it reaches a lift inside a sole-occupancy unit only where that lift is used to reach more than one level of the unit. Class 1a, class 2 and sole-occupancy unit carry their meanings under the Building Code of Australia.

Five kinds of device come out of item 3.6: class 1 amusement rides or devices under section 2.1 of AS 3533.1:2009; playground structures; water slides on which water helps patrons slide, mostly under gravity, along a static structure; wave generators whose machinery patrons never touch; and inflatable devices, apart from continuously blown ones with a platform height of 3 metres or more.

Who applies, and what the regulator decides

The Regulation is plain about the applicant: “A person with management or control of an item of plant may apply to the regulator for the registration of that item of plant.”

Among other things, the application identifies the item clearly, gives the plant design registration number where the design also had to be registered, and states that the item has been inspected by a competent person and assessed as safe to operate; regulation 266 sets out the full list. A competent person, for this inspection, holds qualifications in an engineering discipline relevant to the plant, or knows the technical standards relevant to it.

Once it decides to grant, the regulator notifies the applicant within 14 days. If it has not decided within 120 days of receiving the application, or the extra information it asked for, the registration is taken to have been refused, and that refusal is a reviewable decision.

The 31 January clock

“A registration of an item of plant takes effect on the day registration is granted and expires on 31 January first occurring after the day registration is granted.”

Work Health and Safety Regulation 2011 (Qld), section 272

An illustration, worked from that one sentence and nothing else:

  1. Granted 15 March 2026Expires 31 January 2027, after about ten and a half months.
  2. Granted 20 January 2027Expires 31 January 2027, eleven days later.
  3. Granted 1 February 2027Expires 31 January 2028, a day short of a full year.

So every Queensland registration of an item of plant ends on the same day of the year, however early or late it was granted.

The number on the item

Within 14 days after registering an item, the regulator issues a plant registration number to the registration holder. The holder must pass it on to whoever has management or control of the plant at the workplace, and that person “must ensure that the plant registration number is marked on the item of plant.” Each of those two duties carries a maximum of 12½ penalty units for an individual and 60 for a body corporate.

Designs, in one line

Separately, the design of each item in Schedule 5, Part 1 must be registered, on an application by the business that designs it or by the person with management or control of the item, and a design registration lasts for an unlimited duration.