FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
When Contractor Incidents Happen, the Legal Consequences Fall on You — Forsite Gives Australian Property and Facilities Managers the System to Stay Protected
With WHS penalties reaching up to $11.8 million for organisations and personal liability for individual officers, Australian Property and Facilities Managers can no longer afford to manage contractor compliance without a documented, proactive system behind them.
Auckland, New Zealand — May 2026 — When a workplace incident involves a contractor on a commercial property site, the consequences can be severe. Under the model Work Health and Safety Act, a failure to comply with WHS duties that exposes a person to risk of death or serious injury carries penalties of up to $3.9 million for a body corporate. For the most serious breaches, those penalties rise to $11.8 million for an organisation — and $2.4 million personally for an individual officer (Safe Work Australia, Maximum Monetary Penalties, 1 July 2025). With 317 WHS prosecutions recorded nationally in 2024 and the figure growing year on year, the question is not whether these penalties apply. It is whether your organisation has the documented evidence to defend against them.
The WHS Act’s personal due diligence duty on officers — directors, executives, and senior managers — means liability does not stop at the corporate level. Courts have consistently found that assuming contractors are compliant is insufficient. The cases that attract the highest penalties are those where organisations had every opportunity to manage their risks — but lacked a documented system to prove they did.
For most Property and Facilities Managers, that gap is real. Contractor onboarding happens through emails and spreadsheets. Inductions are tracked inconsistently. Site risks are rarely connected to a formal follow-up process. When a regulator investigates, organisations are left reconstructing evidence of due diligence that was never properly captured.
Forsite, the Auckland-based property tech platform founded in 2016, is purpose-built to close that gap. Its unified ecosystem — online portal, mobile app, and on-site kiosk — gives Property, Facilities, and H&S Managers the auditable contractor compliance and risk management system that protects their sites and their organisation.
Forsite’s Contractor Management solution verifies, inducts, and confirms every contractor is compliant before they access sites — with live monitoring that flags lapsed credentials instantly and a full digital record of every compliance action. Its Risk Management solution gives organisations proactive, portfolio-wide visibility over site risks — formally logged, assessed, and tracked to resolution, building the structured paper trail that demonstrates due diligence when it matters most.
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“Managing personal and organisational risk shouldn’t be complicated. Property managers need a solution that handles complex requirements simply and cost-effectively. At Forsite, that’s exactly what we build — simplicity and value for money aren’t features, they’re our foundation.” — Nathan Cheeseman, CEO, Forsite |
Trusted by leading property organisations across New Zealand — including PMG and Bayleys — Forsite is now bringing its proven platform to the Australian market. Safe Work Australia indexes WHS penalties annually to CPI, meaning exposure grows every year. The most cost-effective investment Australian Property and Facilities Managers can make is a system that ensures they never have to test how high those penalties can go.
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“What we value in Forsite is the ability to manage a range of site and health and safety requirements across our national portfolio of properties — all within one simple to use web portal.” — PMG, one of New Zealand’s leading property management groups |
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“An important factor in our decision to use Forsite as our contractor management solution was to help us manage a large number of sites across multiple regions simply and efficiently.” — Bayleys, one of New Zealand’s most prominent real estate companies |
About Forsite
Founded in 2016 and headquartered in Auckland, New Zealand, Forsite is the property tech platform centralising site, contractor, and compliance management for Property, Facilities, and Health & Safety Managers. Its complete ecosystem — online portal, mobile app, and kiosk — serves clients across Australia, New Zealand, and the UK including leading property management groups, real estate companies, and national facilities management organisations. Visit www.getforsite.com.
Book a demo at www.getforsite.com
Media Enquiries: [email protected]
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Contact details:
Nathan Cheeseman
