HAVS — hand-arm vibration syndrome — is the permanent nerve and blood-vessel damage from years on jackhammers, grinders and breakers. Australia has no legislated vibration limit, but regulators expect you to manage it to the EU benchmark, and the damage is compensable. Here is what is "safe", the symptoms to report, and the claim.
The exposure benchmark (not a legislated limit)
Australia has no legislated HAV exposure standard — but Safe Work Australia and state regulators expect PCBUs to use the EU daily A(8) values as the benchmark, measured per AS ISO 5349:
- Exposure Action Value (EAV) = 2.5 m/s² — once exceeded, you must reduce exposure.
- Exposure Limit Value (ELV) = 5.0 m/s² — an absolute ceiling needing immediate controls.
"A(8)" is the energy-equivalent exposure over an 8-hour day, driven by the tool's vibration magnitude and how long you use it ("trigger time"). Because there is no SWA tool database, you work it out from manufacturer vibration data plus daily trigger time, fed through an international (HSE-style) calculator.
The employer duty
Under the WHS Act's primary duty and the Model Code of Practice: Hazardous Manual Tasks (which lists hand-arm vibration as a risk factor), a PCBU must identify, assess and control HAV through the hierarchy: eliminate where reasonably practicable, then substitute (low-vibration tools), engineering controls, work organisation (job rotation, work-time limits), maintenance, and PPE last. There is no specific legal HAV health-monitoring requirement, but good practice — and SWA guidance — is to ensure symptomatic workers see a doctor experienced in vascular, neurological and musculoskeletal assessment, and to feed that back into control reviews.
The tools and the symptoms
The highest-vibration tools: percussive and impact (jackhammers, demolition hammers, rock breakers, pneumatic chisels), rotary-percussive drills (hammer drills, rotary hammers on concrete), cutting and grinding (angle grinders, concrete saws, disc cutters), chainsaws and brushcutters, and hand-guided compactors and impact wrenches.
The symptoms to report early (the damage is permanent, so early reporting matters): blanching (fingers going white — "vibration white finger"), tingling and numbness, pain, and reduced grip strength. The plain-language rule for the crew: if your hands do this — go white, go numb, tingle, or lose grip — tell someone.
Workers' compensation
HAVS and vibration white finger are compensable as a gradual-onset occupational disease under each state's workers' comp scheme (often listed in disease schedules as "vibration white finger – secondary Raynaud's"). The pathway mirrors other gradual-onset claims (see Permanent Impairment Benefits):
- Report and lodge — medical assessment, insurer notified; statutory claims usually have a short window (around 6 months, with discretion for gradual-onset), common-law up to ~3 years.
- Diagnosis and causation — a HAVS or vibration-Raynaud's diagnosis plus a work history of significant vibration exposure (jackhammers, breakers, grinders), often with a vascular specialist's evidence.
- Statutory benefits — medical, rehab and weekly income while incapacitated.
- Permanent impairment lump sum — once stabilised and assessed against the upper-limb impairment tables (NSW, for instance, has an ~11% WPI threshold for a hand/wrist lump sum).
- Common-law damages — a separate negligence claim where the PCBU failed to control the risk (a QLD vibration case produced damages around $1.5m), turning on failures to rotate tasks, choose low-vibration tools, or maintain plant.
Common mistakes
- Treating the EU 2.5/5.0 values as a strict legal limit (they are the best-practice benchmark, not legislated).
- "Working through" white or numb fingers instead of reporting early (the damage is permanent).
- No job rotation or work-time limits on high-vibration tools.
- Assuming HAVS is not claimable because it built up slowly (it is — as a gradual-onset disease).
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