Lapsed compliance: what it costs a construction contractor

What it is. 19% of the total cost, being the employer's share including workers' compensation premiums.

Sample. AU$61.8 billion total (4.1% of GDP), of which construction was AU$5.84 billion. Employers bear 5% excluding premiums, about 19% including them. The UK is almost identical at about 19% (HSE 2025).

What it is not. SOCIETAL, NOT THE CONTRACTOR'S BILL. Workers and the community bear the rest - recorded so the surface can show the real picture and exclude it from the headline. The report is internally inconsistent (74/21 in the summary, 77/18 in para 89) and its latest edition covers 2012-13. No construction-specific employer share exists.

Where it came from

• Safe Work Australia (2015), The Cost of Work-related Injury and Illness for Australian Employers, Workers and the Community: 2012-13
  paras 89, 92; executive summary · source record

History

• 2026-11-02 subtype 'whs' dropped: it is not one of non_compliance's causes, so the figure covers the disease as a whole (schema 3.0.0, SM070)

non_compliance/noncompliance_employer_share · AU · ALL ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. AUD per incident to the employer, ranging AU$1,200 (short absence) to AU$97,408 (fatality).

Range A$1,200 to A$97,408 (reported min max)

Sample. Built from the Safe Work Australia 2012-13 dataset plus three Tier-two contractor case studies, Australia. Employer-borne: AU$1,200 (58.82%) for a short absence, AU$6,211 for a long absence, AU$50,175 for full incapacity, AU$97,408 for a fatality (2.23% of that accident's total cost).

What it is not. Not independent - it re-cuts the same Safe Work Australia data and is checked against only three case studies, with no averaged employer cost per accident. Severity-specific, so the high end is a fatality and not a typical incident. Penalties are separate and can reach AU$17.0m (Category 1, Commonwealth) or AU$20m (industrial manslaughter, NSW). Price year taken from the source's data year; not yet confirmed against the source's tables.

Where it came from

• Allison, Hon & Xia (2019), Construction accidents in Australia: Evaluating the true costs · free copy
  tables 6 and 7 · source record

History

• 2026-11-02 subtype 'whs' dropped: it is not one of non_compliance's causes, so the figure covers the disease as a whole (schema 3.0.0, SM070)

non_compliance/noncompliance_cost_per_incident · AU · F ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. None - national sources count accredited companies and audit findings; licence fines and prequalification sanctions found are single state cases or carry no dollar amount.

Sample. Search terms used: WHS prosecutions average fine Safe Work Australia; comparative performance monitoring fines per conviction; Federal Safety Commissioner annual data accreditation suspended revoked; Key WHS statistics median compensation construction; national prequalification system suspension cancellation; unlicensed contractor penalty. A frequency exists, but it is not a cost: 606 companies held Federal Safety Commissioner accreditation at the end of 2024, 48 were newly accredited, and 3,319 corrective action reports were raised in 657 audits (a stated compliance rate of 80.9%); the report states no count of suspensions or cancellations. Not opened because the page refused automated access (403): the Austroads national prequalification page and the South Australian DIT prequalification guidelines.

What it is not. Recorded as none on purpose. Losing accreditation or prequalification costs the work it gates, and no national source read prices that. Licence fines are set and published state by state, and the examples found are individual cases. The source of record measures audit findings, not money.

Where it came from

• Office of the Federal Safety Commissioner (2025), Federal Safety Commissioner Annual Data Report 2024
  Accreditation Scheme and Scheme Audits sections (Tables 1 and 6 to 12); Workers' Compensation Premium Rates Over Time (Table 23) · source record

Considered and set aside

• Department of Employment and Workplace Relations: Reviews the accreditation scheme, its powers and cost recovery; no fine or revenue lost for a lapsed accreditation.
• Department of Transport and Main Roads (Queensland): Queensland prequalification manual: suspension, downgrade or cancellation after a show cause notice, with no dollar amount and no cost of lost work.
• Queensland Building and Construction Commission: Queensland only: a licensee fined AU$6,500 plus AU$11,000 restitution for work outside the licence class; one case from 2021.
• Labour Hire Authority (Victoria): Victoria only: AU$759,674 in total penalties on five companies and three directors for unlicensed labour hire; one case and a labour hire licence, not a contractor licence.
• Safe Work Australia: National average fine per WHS prosecution is not split by licence or accreditation breach.
• Safe Work Australia: No field for the kind of failure; licensing and accreditation lapses cannot be isolated.
• Safe Work Australia: National WHS fines and notices only; nothing on contractor licensing or prequalification.
• National Environmental Protection Agency: Fines for breaching environmental approval conditions are a site matter and do not touch a company's licence or prequalification status.

non_compliance/company_compliance_no_published_figure_au · AU · F ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. None - national statistics give premium rates and claim costs for insured employers, not the cost of uninsured contractors or under-declared wages.

Sample. Search terms used: WHS prosecutions average fine Safe Work Australia; comparative performance monitoring fines per conviction; Federal Safety Commissioner annual data accreditation suspended revoked; Key WHS statistics median compensation construction; uninsured contractors workers compensation premium avoidance under-declared wages construction; national estimate workers compensation premium underpayment black economy; AFCA datacube business insurance claim denied. Not opened because the page refused automated access (403): the NSW regulator's review of under-insurance, WorkCover WA's page on uninsured employers, AFCA's datacube page. A frequency exists, but it is not a cost of missing cover: the standardised construction premium rate was 2.29% of payroll in 2021-22 against 1.34% for all industries; that is what insured employers pay, and it is a rate on payroll that the schema cannot hold (no payroll denominator).

What it is not. Recorded as none on purpose. The construction premium rate would price the premium avoided by under-declaring, but no national source read states how much payroll goes undeclared or uninsured, so a loss cannot be built without inventing it. The state figures found are scheme totals for one state.

Where it came from

• Safe Work Australia (2023), Comparative Performance Monitoring Report 25th edition: Premiums
  Australian average premium rates by industry, p.8; Standardised premium rates for Construction by jurisdiction, p.11 · source record

Considered and set aside

• Office of the Federal Safety Commissioner: Table 23 reports accredited companies' premium rate change over time (57% reduced it by an average 33% after three years); a benefit of accreditation, not a cost of lacking cover.
• Department of Employment and Workplace Relations: Quotes earlier scheme premium reduction data (more than 60% of companies, 37% after six years); nothing on uninsured work or under-declared wages.
• Safe Work Australia: Construction median compensation AU$18,500 per serious claim is what schemes paid on claims; it does not separate claims on uninsured or under-insured employers.
• WorkCover Queensland: Queensland only: unpaid premium plus a penalty of 100% of it, AU$4,181,129 premium raised for uninsured or under-insured employers in 2025-26 to 30 September 2025, all industries; a state scheme total, not a per-job figure.
• Deloitte Access Economics for Safe Work Australia: Modelled economy-wide gain (AU$28.6 billion a year); not a cost to a contractor of an insurance gap.
• Safe Work Australia: WHS prosecutions do not cover insurance offences, and the average fine is not split by breach.
• Safe Work Australia: Records WHS Act and Regulation offences only; no insurance field.
• Safe Work Australia: Enforcement tables cover WHS notices and fines, not workers compensation premium compliance.

non_compliance/insurance_compliance_no_published_figure_au · AU · ALL ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. None - national fine and claim statistics are not split by licence, ticket or induction breach, and the one licence-breach fine found is a single Queensland case.

Sample. Search terms used: WHS prosecutions average fine Safe Work Australia; comparative performance monitoring fines per conviction; Federal Safety Commissioner annual data accreditation suspended revoked; Key WHS statistics median compensation construction; unlicensed high risk work licence fine court average. A frequency exists, but it is not a cost: in the Federal Safety Commissioner's 2024 audits the highest corrective action issue rate for accredited companies was 52% (40 reports in 77 tests) for temporary structures being installed by a competent person, and for non-accredited applicants 43% for training of managers and supervisors in WHS.

What it is not. Recorded as none on purpose. The national fine data are real but are not split by the kind of breach, and the only licence-breach fine amounts found are single state court reports. The source of record is the most relevant national source read; it measures audit findings, not money.

Where it came from

• Office of the Federal Safety Commissioner (2025), Federal Safety Commissioner Annual Data Report 2024
  Accreditation Scheme and Scheme Audits sections (Tables 1 and 6 to 12); Workers' Compensation Premium Rates Over Time (Table 23) · source record

Considered and set aside

• Safe Work Australia: National average fine AU$116,979 per prosecution in 2024 (317 prosecutions, 47% in construction), but across every kind of WHS breach and every industry; not attributable to licences, tickets or inductions.
• Safe Work Australia: The repository records the Act and regulation section cited as free text and no field for the kind of failure, so a licence or induction average cannot be read without coding cases by hand.
• Safe Work Australia: National fines ordered (AU$26,050 thousand in 2021-22 over 301 convictions, orders or agreements) are not split by breach type or industry.
• Safe Work Australia: Construction median compensation of AU$18,500 per serious claim is a cost per injury of any cause; the claims data does not record whether a missing ticket or licence was the cause.
• Safe Work Australia: Regulations 39 (training and instruction) and 81 (high risk work licence) set the duties, but offences carry tiers, not dollar amounts, and the model is not itself in force.
• Office of the Work Health and Safety Prosecutor (Queensland): One Queensland case: a worker fined AU$3,500 against a AU$20,000 maximum for operating a forklift without the right licence class. State only, one case.
• Ehsan Gharaie (RMIT University), The Conversation: Names inadequate supervision (18 of 81 plant deaths) among underlying causes; an author summary with no cost figure.
• Department of Employment and Workplace Relations: Reviews the accreditation scheme and quotes premium reductions; contains no fine or penalty for tickets or inductions.
• Office of the Federal Safety Commissioner: Counts corrective action reports on mobile plant and scaffolding systems of work (competence, training); counts only, no money.
• RMIT University for SafeWork NSW: New South Wales study naming operator competency and licensing among crane incident factors; keyword scan found no cost or fine amounts.

non_compliance/people_compliance_no_published_figure_au · AU · F ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. None - national statistics count plant incidents and audit findings but give no fine, stop-work cost or cost per incident for plant.

Sample. Search terms used: WHS prosecutions average fine Safe Work Australia; comparative performance monitoring fines per conviction; Federal Safety Commissioner annual data accreditation suspended revoked; Key WHS statistics median compensation construction; mobile plant crane incident cost per incident; plant registration prestart fine. A frequency exists, but it is not a cost: mobile plant was the most frequent high-risk hazard in incidents reported to the Federal Safety Commissioner in 2015-2019 (548 of 1,737) and drew 1,954 of 4,447 high-risk corrective action reports (44%) in 2017-2019.

What it is not. Recorded as none on purpose. Plant is well counted in Australian national data and not priced. A crane or mobile plant incident has fines and compensation costs, but none of the national sources read states one for plant.

Where it came from

• Office of the Federal Safety Commissioner (2020), FSC Data: Mobile Plant and Scaffolding
  The whole data sheet: high-risk hazard incidents 2015-2019 and corrective action reports 2017-2019 · source record

Considered and set aside

• Office of the Federal Safety Commissioner: 2024 audit findings by criterion with issue rates; counts only, no penalty or cost for plant.
• Safe Work Australia: National average fine AU$116,979 per prosecution across all breaches; no plant breakdown.
• Safe Work Australia: No field for the kind of failure, so plant-registration or prestart fines cannot be isolated without coding free text.
• Safe Work Australia: 5,700 prohibition notices across Australia in 2021-22, a stop-work count with no cost and no plant split.
• Safe Work Australia: Construction median compensation AU$18,500 per serious claim covers every injury cause, not plant incidents.
• Safe Work Australia: Regulation 246 requires registration of listed plant; the penalty is a tier with no dollar amount in the model.
• Ehsan Gharaie (RMIT University), The Conversation: Study of 81 construction plant deaths (trucks and excavators most frequent, 15 crane deaths); an author summary of a causes study; the paper itself is paywalled and only its abstract was read, which holds no cost. The thinnest entry here.
• RMIT University for SafeWork NSW: New South Wales crane incident study; keyword scan of the full text found no incident cost or fine amount.

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What it is. None - the one national money series found, EPBC Act infringement notices, is a statutory penalty (60 penalty units) and not a measured cost, and the national fine statistics are not split by kind of breach.

Sample. National EPA register of paid infringement notices (entries dated 2025, re-added by the reviewer): 32 notices in 21 entries, AU$628,500 in all, a mean of AU$19,640.63 per notice. Every one of the 32 notices is either AU$18,780 (5) or AU$19,800 (27), which is 60 penalty units at an implied unit value of AU$313 and AU$330; 2026 entries show AU$19,800 and AU$21,840 (unit value AU$364). The mean therefore restates the penalty unit rate in force on each notice date and measures no cost; it was a figure in the first draft of this record and was removed at review. Search terms used: WHS prosecutions average fine Safe Work Australia; comparative performance monitoring fines per conviction; Federal Safety Commissioner annual data; Key WHS statistics median compensation construction.

What it is not. Recorded as none on purpose. The EPBC notice is a fixed statutory amount, so averaging it measures the penalty unit value and not what a breach costs anyone. It also covers one federal Act (EPBC approval conditions) and not permits to work, traffic management plans, state environmental licences or asbestos registers; most notices on the register are for late or missing compliance reports and management plans, and the notice goes to the approval holder or the third party carrying out the action, who is often an owner or developer and not a contractor. A fine only: the stop-work, rectification and clean-up costs that follow a breach are not in it.

Where it came from

• National Environmental Protection Agency (2026), Infringement notices and register of paid infringement notices
  Penalties paragraph and "Register of paid infringement notices", entries dated January to December 2025 (21 entries) and 2026 to 22 October · source record

Considered and set aside

• Office of the Work Health and Safety Prosecutor (Queensland): Queensland only and one case: a painter fined AU$3,000 against a AU$153,600 maximum for spraying an asbestos roof. Shows asbestos-related site breaches are prosecuted, but a state-only single case cannot fill the national cell.
• Safe Work Australia: Regulation 425 requires an asbestos register and carries a tier G monetary penalty, but the model regulations give no dollar amount, are not themselves in force, and so give the asbestos register part of the site cause no figure.
• Safe Work Australia: National average fine of AU$116,979 per prosecution (2024) covers every WHS breach and cannot be attributed to permits, traffic management, environment or asbestos.
• Safe Work Australia: No field for the kind of failure; a permit, traffic plan or asbestos register breach cannot be isolated.
• Safe Work Australia: 5,700 prohibition notices and AU$26,050 thousand in court fines nationally in 2021-22, none split by kind of breach or industry.
• Office of the Federal Safety Commissioner: Counts 249 road or traffic high-risk incidents among 1,737 reported in 2015-2019; counts only, no cost.
• Office of the Federal Safety Commissioner: Audit findings against accredited companies' systems, including traffic management plan criteria, as issue rates; no penalty or cost.
• Safe Work Australia: Construction median compensation AU$18,500 per serious claim covers every injury cause and cannot be tied to a permit, traffic plan, environmental condition or asbestos register.

non_compliance/site_compliance_no_published_figure_au · AU · ALL ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. None - the only fines found that turn on a business or worker lacking a licence are three WorkSafe asbestos prosecutions, too few and too unlike to summarise, and each fine covers a whole charge sheet.

Sample. WorkSafe's court summary register searched on "asbestos" (24 results on 2026-11-02), "licence" and "unlicensed" in building and construction. Three entries say the person removing asbestos held no removal licence and were decided under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015: Knight $3,000 (2 November 2018, an individual), Sibley $15,000 (11 November 2020, an individual) and Wilson Building Timaru Limited $66,000 (29 September 2023, a company whose worker was unlicensed). A fourth, Essential Homes ($30,000, 2020), was charged mainly with breaching a prohibition notice that included unlicensed removal. The licence regimes found are the asbestos removal licences (Class A and B) and the LBP scheme; no general contractor licence, prequalification or accreditation regime with a published penalty was found.

What it is not. Recorded as none on purpose. A median of the three unlicensed removal fines ($15,000, range $3,000 to $66,000) was considered and rejected. A median of three is not a statistic, because the three differ twenty-two fold, two defendants are individuals and one a company, each fine covers the whole charge sheet (Wilson's reflects four days of exposure to other workers' fibres, not the missing licence alone), and all three already sit inside the nine-case set filed under site_compliance, so a second figure would count the same prosecutions twice. The cell is open for research that finds a licence, prequalification or accreditation regime with a published cost, such as a principal's panel exclusion, which this search did not reach.

Where it came from

• WorkSafe New Zealand (2025), WorkSafe court summaries (prosecutions register): asbestos prosecutions in building and construction
  register entries found by the search term "asbestos" (24 results on 2026-11-02); each entry's "The offence" and "The decision" sections: dong-sh-auckland-limited, inspired-enterprises-limited, lawrence-gannaway, wilson-building-timaru-limited, ecologically-sound-demolition-limited, glenn-warwick-sibley, crafar-crouch-construction-limited-b, essential-homes-limited, topham-holding-limited, richard-john-knight, john-carstairs-robertson · source record

Considered and set aside

• Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment: Unlicensed restricted building work by an individual under the LBP scheme, a worker licence filed under people_compliance, not a licence the business holds.
• Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment: Board disciplinary fines on licensed practitioners ($500 to $5,000 over four years, no average) are for poor work or supervision, not for lacking a licence.
• Building Practitioners Board (Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment): Counts 59 fines among 81 penalties in 2024/25 with no dollar amounts, and covers licensed individuals only.
• Building Practitioners Board (Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment): Counts 56 fines in 2023/24 with no dollar amounts; the same limit.
• WorkSafe New Zealand: Counts of notices and prosecutions only, no dollar value and no licence cause.
• Hesketh Henry: An all-sector average of $145,033.60 per section 36 offence from 2018, with no split by licence or accreditation.
• WorkSafe New Zealand: Construction's share of harm and deaths, with no cost figure and nothing on licences or accreditation held by a business.
• WorkSafe New Zealand: A company fined $351,563 on the whole section 36 duty after an unlicensed driver died; none of it can be attributed to a licence the business lacked.

non_compliance/company_compliance_none_nz · NZ · F ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. None - no source read gives a cost of uninsured contractors, denied claims or under-declared ACC earnings in New Zealand construction.

Sample. Searched: ACC levy penalties, uncovered or under-declared employers, uninsured contractors, public liability and contract works cover, declined claims, WorkSafe court summary register ("insurance" returned 8 entries and "uninsured" none; the 8 were not read). Review read the Accident Compensation Act 2001 on legislation.govt.nz and ACC's Q2 2026 work statistics deck, which the first search could not open; neither holds a defensible money figure. ACC's OIA responses and the ACC work-injury statistics web page returned PDF-only or empty pages. A frequency exists that the schema cannot hold: 54% of 170 surveyed renovators did not consider contract works insurance (AMI and Ipsos, 2022), which is homeowners, not contractors.

What it is not. Recorded as none on purpose. ACC guidance says levies apply to employers and to contractors paid schedular payments, and gives no penalty amount; the Act gives only a rate and a cap. ACC publishes counts of construction claims but costs only across all industries, so a cost per construction claim does not exist in anything read, and it would measure injury cost to the scheme rather than the cost of cover that lapsed. No regulator count of uninsured contractors was found.

Where it came from

• Business.govt.nz (Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment) (2026), What you pay for your employees: ACC levies
  sections on employer invoicing, penalties for late payment, and contractors · source record

Considered and set aside

• Insurance Business NZ: AMI and Ipsos survey of 536 homeowners: 54% of 170 renovators did not consider contract works insurance. A frequency from homeowners, with no dollar value and no damaged-project count.
• BizCover New Zealand: One broker's average monthly premiums (builders $60); a price of cover, not the cost of lacking it.
• Marsh New Zealand for NZ Transport Agency: NZTA principal-arranged public liability: $100,000,000 limit, $500,000 deductible; shows cover is a contract requirement but gives no loss from cover that failed.
• Howden New Zealand: ACC experience rating (penalties up to 75%, moving to 100%) is a levy loading for claims history, not a cost of under-declared wages, and is not construction-specific.
• Business Insurance: Auditor-General survey of public entities: less than half of NZ$225 billion of public assets insured; public owners, no dollar uninsured loss, no contractors.
• Insurance Business NZ: States public liability is often a contract requirement; no figures on uninsured contractors or denials.
• Insurance Council of New Zealand: The industry body publishes claims and weather-loss data but nothing on contract works, public liability or declined claims for contractors.
• New Zealand Parliament (legislation.govt.nz): The ACC levy penalty rule is in the statute: interest, then 10% of the total unpaid after 210 days and again every 180 days, capped at three times the unpaid levy (section 250). A rate and a cap, not an observed cost, and the Act counts no employer who under-declared.
• Accident Compensation Corporation: ACC quarterly statistics: construction had 27,121 new work claims in 2025, but costs are given for all industries only ($1,254,610,727 active costs, 271,126 active claims), so there is no cost per construction claim, and no link to cover that lapsed.
• Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment: MBIE estimates latent defects average about $23,000 per new house in 2025, but does not say who bears the cost or whether insurance responded.

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What it is. NZD fine imposed on one tradesperson for carrying out restricted building work while his Licensed Building Practitioner licence was suspended; excludes the $4,880.81 reparation, $1,000 emotional harm and two $1,000 fines for false statements in the same case.

Range NZ$2,000 to NZ$5,600 (across studies)

Sample. One New Zealand case read in MBIE's own media release, with three further MBIE prosecutions of the same offence read in one MBIE release and two news reports. Searches: WorkSafe court summaries register ("licence", "unlicensed", "unqualified", "training", "induction", "competent", "certificate of competence", "forklift licence"), MBIE and Building Practitioners Board reports, news searches on unlicensed restricted building work. Frequencies exist that the schema cannot hold: the Board upholds about 100 complaints or inquiries a year and imposed 59 fines among 81 penalties in 2024/25 (no dollar amounts); WorkSafe issued 1,039 improvement notices in one quarter; Draper (Taupo, 2019) was ordered to pay $3,000 for claiming to be an LBP, which the report does not call a fine.

What it is not. A single case, graded low, and a thin fill for the cell: one fine in one court (Kaitaia) is not a national figure, though Building Act section 85 and MBIE as prosecutor are national. Dodd is the value because MBIE's own release states the fine separately from the reparation and false-statement fines; he held an LBP licence that was suspended, whereas Ross, Faulkner and Williams were never licensed, so this is a suspended licence rather than none. The other three fall at $2,000, $2,000 and $5,600, and Dodd sits inside that range. They were found by search, not drawn as a sample: I found no complete MBIE list, and other prosecutions exist (a $10,000 fine reported in 2025 for unlicensed work with forged documents appeared in search results and was not read). Two of the four cases are news accounts, not court records. The fine is paid by the individual tradesperson and is a sentence on the offence, not the cost of the licence lapse. The only licence regime read here is the LBP scheme for restricted building work; WorkSafe's crane page shows that no crane operator ticket is required.

Where it came from

• Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (2023), Unlicensed builder fined for carrying out restricted building work
  paragraph on the sentence: $3,279.80 fine for carrying out restricted building work while unlicensed · source record
• Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (2017), Unlicensed builder fined $2,000 for restricted building work without consent
  headline and first paragraph: $2,000 fine · source record
• 1News (2019), Unlicensed builders fined for carrying out restricted work
  second case (Faulkner): $2,000 fine, $4,500 reparation · source record
• 1News (2026), Unlicensed builder fined over botched Carterton home build
  second paragraph: $5,600 fine, $1,000 emotional harm reparation, $130 costs · source record

Considered and set aside

• 1News: A separate regime (Electricity Act 1992, Electrical Workers Registration Board). Six prosecutions heard March to July 2024 with fines of $1,200 to $9,000 ($28,950 in all) are reported by a news article; the Board's own prosecution page lists no amounts. A better base for a people figure than one building case, once the Board's releases are read, and not mixed in here because the licence and the trade differ.
• Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment: Gives the Board's disciplinary fines for LBPs as a range of $500 to $5,000 over four years but no average, and a disciplinary fine is for poor work or supervision by a person who holds a licence, not for working without one.
• Building Practitioners Board (Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment): Counts 59 fines among 81 penalties in 2024/25 but states no dollar amounts, and covers licensed practitioners only.
• Building Practitioners Board (Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment): Counts 56 fines in 2023/24 with no dollar amounts; the same limit as the 2025 report.
• WorkSafe New Zealand: An unlicensed driver died, but the $351,563 fine was for the whole section 36 duty failure and cannot be split to the missing licence.
• WorkSafe New Zealand: Competence of a harness user was one strand of a risk-assessment failure, and no fine was in fact imposed because the defendant could not pay.
• WorkSafe New Zealand: States that holding a crane unit standard or certificate is not mandatory, so a crane operator without one breaches no ticket requirement that a penalty could be counted against.
• WorkSafe New Zealand: Counts improvement notices (1,039), prohibition notices (254) and prosecutions disposed (12) for one quarter, with no dollar value and no cause split.
• Hesketh Henry: An average fine of $145,033.60 per section 36 offence from the Act's first two years, all sectors and all causes, from the firm's own count.

non_compliance/people_restricted_building_work_unlicensed_fine_nz · NZ · F ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. None - no source read gives a fine, stop-work cost or incident cost attributed to plant registration, inspection or category failure in New Zealand.

Sample. WorkSafe court summary register searched on "crane", "certificate of inspection", "pressure equipment", "crane inspection", "plant registration", "prestart", "registration", "forklift licence" (building and construction, and all industries); WorkSafe cranes and construction pages; the quarterly report; a law-firm count of fines. The register's free-text search is not selective ("plant registration" returned all 608 entries), so the entries read were those whose titles and facts were plant-related; none was charged for an unregistered or uncertified machine, except KNCC and Metallic Sweeping, where a certificate of inspection was one particular among several. Frequencies exist that the schema cannot hold: construction is about 15% of work-related fatalities and serious injuries, with 9 to 10 deaths a year, and vehicles and mobile machinery are a WorkSafe focus area.

What it is not. Recorded as none on purpose. The nearest evidence is KNCC (2023), a construction company charged under section 36 with four particulars, one of which was using a truck loader crane and slings without a current certificate of inspection. The fine ($380,000, cut to $240,000 for financial capacity) covers the whole charge, so no part of it can be assigned to the plant certificate. The 1999 pressure equipment and cranes regulations, which require those certificates, lost their offence and penalty provisions in 2016, so plant breaches are pleaded as general duty failures. This is a search of public registers and pages, not of court files.

Where it came from

• WorkSafe New Zealand (2023), KNCC Limited (court summary, 2023)
  summary page kncc-limited-2: The offence, The decision · source record

Considered and set aside

• WorkSafe New Zealand: States that holding a crane unit standard or certificate is not mandatory for an operator, which is a people question; it holds no cost and says nothing on plant registration or inspection.
• New Zealand Parliament (legislation.govt.nz): The regulations that require certificates of inspection for cranes and pressure equipment. Their offences and penalties (Part 6, regulation 39) were revoked on 4 April 2016, so a missing certificate is no longer a stand-alone offence with a penalty of its own, and the text holds no dollar figure.
• WorkSafe New Zealand: The one prosecution found where a crane certificate of inspection is a named particular outside the KNCC case ($15,000 over three years, 2022), but the industry is waste services and the fine is for the whole section 36 charge, including a detached hook.
• WorkSafe New Zealand: Crane lift and collapsed temporary works ($400,000 fine, reparation and costs) charged under the general duty, not plant certification.
• WorkSafe New Zealand: Principal contractor in the same lift, $10,000 fine for a duty on engaging another party, with no plant registration element.
• WorkSafe New Zealand: The nearest plant-hire case: a skid steer delivered with inoperative safety devices, reparation $66,515.20 and no fine; one 2016 case under the 1992 Act about condition, not registration or category.
• WorkSafe New Zealand: A vehicle inspection company fined $225,000 over a pedestrian death on its own site; transport industry and a traffic-management failure, not an inspection certificate.
• Hesketh Henry: An average of $145,033.60 per section 36 offence across all sectors and causes, with no plant split.
• WorkSafe New Zealand: Counts 1,039 improvement and 254 prohibition notices in one quarter with no dollar value and no plant category.
• WorkSafe New Zealand: Gives construction's share of harm and deaths and names vehicles and mobile machinery as a focus, but no cost figure and no registration or inspection data.
• Marsh New Zealand for NZ Transport Agency: Shows NZTA's insurance covers plant not required to be registered for road use and hired plant, with a $500,000 deductible; a policy term, not the cost of an unregistered or uninspected machine.

non_compliance/plant_compliance_none_nz · NZ · F ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. NZD fine per prosecution under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 for asbestos offences (survey, notification, licensed removal, demolition of contaminated buildings); median of nine; mean $54,247.

Range NZ$1,100 to NZ$318,750 (reported min max)

Sample. WorkSafe's court summary register (608 entries when read) searched on "asbestos": 24 entries. Left out: 7 decided under the 1992 Act (fines up to $45,000), 2 withdrawn, Dong SH Auckland ($255,000) and its appeal, Quick Earth Moving ($150,000) and Essential Homes ($30,000) because the asbestos finding was secondary to a wall collapse or a prohibition-notice breach, and Bays Boating ($108,000, retail) and McManus Hotel ($50,000, hospitality) because the register records a non-construction industry. The register was also searched on "traffic management" (17 construction entries); of those read, only Higgins Contractors ($270,000, a three-fatality roadside case) was described by its facts as a traffic-management failure, so no set could be formed. Review re-derived the 24 results on 2026-11-02: 9 in the set, 3 left out as above (Dong, Quick Earth, Essential Homes), Dong's appeal, 2 non-construction, 7 under the 1992 Act and 2 withdrawn 2013 entries; every fine in the set matches its entry.

What it is not. Graded low on review. The median is not stable. It is the middle of nine prosecutions chosen by this research from one regulator's register under the rule in sample_note, and a defensible change to the rule moves it. Adding Dong SH Auckland ($255,000, one of its three charges is worker exposure to asbestos) gives a median of $19,687.50 over ten; adding Dong and Quick Earth Moving ($150,000) gives $23,375 over eleven; adding those two and Essential Homes ($30,000) gives $26,687.50 over twelve; dropping Topham gives $19,687.50 over eight. The nine are eight jobs, since Inspired Enterprises and Gannaway are one flooring job (21 June 2021), and Topham is a farmer demolishing a chicken shed, which the register records as building and construction. Each fine is a sentence on the whole charge sheet after the court's discounts, so it prices a prosecution, not the cost of a missing register, and only prosecuted breaches appear. Defendants are individuals and companies; the offences range from no asbestos survey to demolishing two contaminated buildings. Amounts are nominal across 2017 to 2023. The cause also covers permits to work, traffic management plans and environmental conditions, and this figure speaks to none of those; none of the nine entries is charged only with a missing asbestos register or management plan.

Our arithmetic. Fines as the WorkSafe register states them, sorted: $1,100 (Gannaway 2023); $3,000 (Knight 2018); $10,000 (Topham 2017); $15,000 (Sibley 2020); $16,000 (Ecologically Sound Demolition 2020); $23,375 (Inspired Enterprises 2023, after appeal); $35,000 (Robertson 2018); $66,000 (Wilson Building Timaru 2023); $318,750 (Crafar Crouch Construction 2018). The median is the fifth value, $16,000. Sum $488,225, mean $54,247 (488,225 / 9). price_year 2020 is the middle decision year; the amounts are nominal.

Where it came from

• WorkSafe New Zealand (2025), WorkSafe court summaries (prosecutions register): asbestos prosecutions in building and construction
  nine register entries listed in the source: topham-holding-limited, richard-john-knight, john-carstairs-robertson, crafar-crouch-construction-limited-b, glenn-warwick-sibley, ecologically-sound-demolition-limited, lawrence-gannaway, inspired-enterprises-limited, wilson-building-timaru-limited · source record

Considered and set aside

• Te Uru Kahika Regional and Unitary Councils Aotearoa: Resource Management Act fines of $3,108,157 across 71 convicted defendants in 2024/25 cover every sector with no construction or earthworks split, so they do not measure an environmental-conditions breach on a construction job.
• WorkSafe New Zealand: Counts of notices and prosecutions with no dollar value by cause.
• Hesketh Henry: An all-sector average of $145,033.60 per section 36 offence from 2018, not tied to a site requirement.

non_compliance/site_asbestos_prosecution_fine_nz · NZ · F ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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What it is. 0.25% of contract sum, insured (0.15%) plus uninsured (0.1%) accident cost.

Sample. A questionnaire survey of Singapore building contractors, 2011. Read from the paper's own abstract; the sample size is not stated there.

What it is not. Singapore building work, not Australian civil, and contractors' own survey estimates rather than cost records. The full paper has not been read, so the sample size is unconfirmed. A weak Indian study found about 0.48% accident loss; the often-quoted '7.9% to 15%' comes from 1990s US data that could not be verified and is excluded.

Where it came from

• Teo & Feng (2011), Costs of Construction Accidents to Singapore Contractors
  abstract, as reproduced on the co-author's institutional research portal: https://researchers.westernsydney.edu.au/en/publications/costs-of-construction-accidents-to-singapore-contractors (the publisher page and full text returned 403) · source record

History

• 2026-09-25 Previously read only as a search snippet (secondary, unverified). Now read from the paper's own abstract, which confirms the 0.25% and adds the insured and uninsured split. A survey of contractors' own estimates grades moderate under METHOD.md Section 4. The title and industry (building, F41) are corrected from the abstract.
• 2026-11-02 subtype 'whs' dropped: it is not one of non_compliance's causes, so the figure covers the disease as a whole (schema 3.0.0, SM070)

non_compliance/noncompliance_accident_cost_ratio · SG · F41 ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)

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