Crane Counterweight Handling and Transport SWMS

For crane owners, crane hire companies, riggers and heavy haulage operators who fit and remove counterweights and carry them by road. It follows the work from planning the lifts and the route, through ground and power line checks, inspecting counterweights and gear, using the crane’s own system and an assist crane, loading and restraining the load, to road transport and fitting at the destination. Assist crane operation, boom assembly and oversize loads have their own SWMS.

Handling and transporting crane counterweights at a yard or depot or on the road is not construction work by itself, so no item is pre-ticked and a SWMS is required by law only for high risk construction work (WHS Regulation s 299); this document works as a written safe work procedure or task risk assessment. If the work is done at a construction site or forms part of construction work, such as fitting counterweights to a crane on a building site, tick the reg 291 items that apply: movement of powered mobile plant (item o), a risk of a fall of more than 2 m (item a), work on, in or adjacent to a road in use (item n) and work on or near energised electrical installations or services (item k).

New to SWMS? Read What Is A Safe Work Method Statement?

What Is Covered In Our Crane Counterweight Handling and Transport SWMS?

After the standard pre-start checks, the job steps run from “Plan the job, the lifts and the route” to “Unload, fit the counterweights at the destination and pack up”. The hazards and controls include:

• Crane instability from the wrong counterweight
• Crush points between counterweights, carrier and vehicle
• Dropped counterweights from faulty lifting gear
• Assist crane overload at the working radius
• Misunderstood signals when the load is out of view
• Contact with overhead power lines
• Ground failure under cranes and vehicles
• Falls from the trailer deck and counterweight stack
• Load shift or loss on the road
• Mass and restraint of the transport vehicle
• Hydraulic fluid injection and spills
• Fatigue on long haulage trips

High Risk Construction Work

None of the high risk construction work items (WHS Regulation 2011 (Qld) s 291) are pre-ticked, because this job is not high risk construction work by itself. Tick any that apply on your site.

Licences, Training and Competency

• Competent person (for example a rigger) who knows the crane model and its counterweight configurations, to oversee fitting and removal to the crane maker’s written procedure
• High risk work licence for the class of any crane that lifts the counterweights, where Schedule 3 sets one: for example a vehicle loading crane of 10 metre tonnes or more (item 13), a non-slewing mobile crane with a capacity exceeding 3 t (item 14) or the slewing mobile crane class that matches its capacity (items 15 to 18)
• High risk work licence in the dogging class, or a higher rigging class (Schedule 3 items 4 to 7), for anyone who slings a load or directs a plant operator in the movement of a load when the load is out of the operator’s view (Schedule 19, dogging work); the approved Mobile Crane Code of Practice 2024 recommends that the operator does not sling their own load, even if the operator also holds a dogging licence
• Written evidence of each licence sighted before the work starts (WHS Regulation s 85)
• Familiarisation on the crane model, its load charts and its counterweight system for the crane operator
• Driver licence for the class of heavy vehicle driven, and training and verified competency in load restraint
• General construction induction training card (white card) and site induction when the work is on a construction site
• First aid equipment, facilities and trained first aiders or access to them as the work needs (WHS Regulation s 42)

Legislation and Codes of Practice Referenced

• Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (Qld)
• Work Health and Safety Regulation 2011 (Qld)
• WHS Regulation 2011 (Qld) ss 213, 214, 215 and 219: maintenance and inspection of plant, powered mobile plant, and plant that lifts or suspends loads
• WHS Regulation 2011 (Qld) ss 54, 55 and 78 to 80: falling objects, management of the risk of a fall and rescue procedures
• WHS Regulation 2011 (Qld) ss 60 and 85: hazardous manual tasks and written evidence of a high risk work licence
• WHS Regulation 2011 (Qld) Schedule 3 and Schedule 19: high risk work licence classes and the meaning of dogging work
• Mobile Crane Code of Practice 2024 (counterweights, crane crew, erecting and dismantling, lifting gear and road travel)
• Managing Risks of Plant in the Workplace Code of Practice 2021
• Managing the Risk of Falls at Workplaces Code of Practice 2021
• Hazardous Manual Tasks Code of Practice 2021
• First Aid in the Workplace Code of Practice 2021
• How to Manage Work Health and Safety Risks Code of Practice 2021
• Electrical Safety Act 2002 (Qld)
• Electrical Safety Regulation 2026 (Qld): overhead power line exclusion zones in sections 10 to 13 and schedule 2
• Electrical Safety Code of Practice 2020 – Working near overhead and underground electric lines
• Heavy Vehicle National Law (Queensland), applied by the Heavy Vehicle National Law Act 2012 (Qld): s 6 (heavy vehicle means a vehicle with a GVM or ATM of more than 4.5 t), s 26C (primary duty of each party in the chain of responsibility), s 96 (compliance with mass requirements), s 110 (national regulations may prescribe loading requirements), s 111 (compliance with the loading requirements) and s 228 (duty of driver to avoid driving while fatigued or unfit to drive)
• National Load Restraint Guide (National Heavy Vehicle Regulator): guidance, not law
• Safe Work Australia model Code of Practice: Managing the risk of fatigue at work (model code, not approved in Queensland; guidance only)

What You Get

• An editable Microsoft Word document (16 A4 landscape pages). Type your business, client and job details once and they fill in on every page, with a space for your logo
• 10 job steps for this work, each with its hazards, controls, initial and residual risk scores and the person responsible
• PPE listed for this job: hard hat with chin strap near suspended loads and the vehicle; safety boots with ankle support and non-slip soles; cut-resistant gloves for chains, wire rope and slings; safety glasses
• Emergency arrangements for: counterweight falls or a person is trapped, load shift or restraint failure on the road and crane or assist crane starts to tip or the ground gives way
• Plus the parts every Work Safety QLD SWMS shares, from the s 291 checklist to the worker sign-on sheet (see the layout in our free SWMS template)

Adjust it for your site, plant and crew, and talk it through with your workers before work starts. Please make sure you read our Disclaimer before downloading this SWMS.

Checked against the Queensland laws and codes of practice listed above. Last reviewed November 2026.