A volunteer association is a person conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU) if it employs one or more paid workers.
Most organisations that carry out work have duties under the work health and safety (WHS) laws but volunteer associations—groups that are made up entirely of volunteers and no employees —do not have duties under the WHS Act.
Where a volunteer association has employees, there are work health and safety obligations which will require the employer (the PCBU) to manage, so far as is reasonably practicable, the physical and psychological health and safety of all of its workers and its volunteers. Volunteers in this circumstance are owed the same duties as all other workers.
