Record keeping is a good habit to foster, but in my experience, has never been the priority item to be addressed on a farm.

• There are some records that you are required to keep under the Regulations ......but not a lot!
• Then there are other records that might help you with your decision making and management of farm safety & other business tasks
• Overall, record what is useful and sensible and keep it in proportion to the actual risk of harm
• Concentrate on 'what can kill you'! There is no point wasting your time on record keeping that provides no meaningful value and is not required by the Law.

For your average grain and livestock operation, the records required to be kept under the WHS Regulations are those involving Electrical, Confined Spaces, Asbestos, Carcinogens, Chemicals, Incidents/Injuries, Health Monitoring and specified High Risk Plant.

When it comes to high risk plant & machinery maintenance records, the regulations specify which records should be kept. These might be service records, test results and usage timelines.

• High Risk Plant - maintenance and usage records - very specific plant defined in the Regulations - such as a Forklift or Elevated Work Platform, Cranes, Telehandlers over 3 tonne capacity and Pressure Vessels (aka Air Compressor)
• Manufacturing of Plant - keep this in mind when you are 'making things' on farm and seek further advice
• Plant with presence sensing safeguarding system (more prevalent in manufacturing but may be present in agriculture for practices like sorting of oysters, fruits and vegetables)

I encourage you to make an effort in recording your major repairs and anything that may specifically impact the safe operation of that piece of plant. This record could be a diary, a fault list or register, invoice records, emails or text messages. A lot of farmers use a whiteboard within their workshops to keep track of the maintenance jobs that need to be done and some machines record basic oil changes & maintenance for you anyway.

Your record keeping can be done in whatever format suits you and the people within the business. Some like technology, but some don't, so you need to think about this and discuss as a workforce. What is the most likely way the people within your business will actually perform any recording tasks you require?

Members of my website get copies of my own farm templates to make their own, and a direct line to me for DIY guidance with each subject.

Resources freely available online:

• Managing Risks of Plant in the Workplace
• High Risk Plant - WHS Regulations (SA) 2012
• Safework Aust - Carcinogens in Agriculture
• WHS Regulations
• Return to Work SA - Self Audit Tool