Take 5, Take 5 safety, SLAM, prestart, point of work risk assessment
All the same thing, and the name changes by employer rather than by law. Most Australian sites call it a Take 5 or a Take 5 safety card. Some call it a Take 5 risk assessment, which is the clearest of the names because it says what it is. Elsewhere it is SLAM, stop look assess manage, which is the same five steps with the fifth one implied.
Worth knowing because a subcontractor turning up on a site that calls it something else is not being asked for a different document. If a principal contractor asks for a point of work risk assessment and you have a Take 5 book in the van, you already have it.
A Take 5 is not a statutory document
No regulation in Australia names a Take 5, requires one, or sets out what has to be on it. That is worth saying as plainly as this site's SWMS builder says the equivalent thing about a method statement, because the two kinds of document get blurred together constantly and the blur is not harmless.
A safe work method statement is a different kind of thing. The model WHS Regulations genuinely require one before any of eighteen defined kinds of high risk construction work starts, and a job involving scaffolding, work near moving plant or a fall risk over two metres needs that document, not this one. A Take 5 does not replace a SWMS and was never meant to. Where a SWMS is required, do the SWMS. A Take 5 sits alongside it, as the habit carried out at the moment work actually begins rather than the document prepared ahead of it.
What it actually supports
Every person conducting a business or undertaking has a primary duty under the model WHS Act to eliminate or minimise risks to health and safety so far as reasonably practicable, and every worker has a duty to take reasonable care of their own safety and everybody else's. The model WHS Regulations back that with a general risk management duty: identify what could hurt somebody, assess it, control it, and keep checking. A Take 5 is one practical way of actually doing that at the point a task starts. It is a habit that supports an existing duty, not a duty of its own, and filling one in is evidence that the thinking happened. It is not a substitute for the thinking.
Every state except Victoria, and the one that stopped being a second exception
Safe Work Australia states plainly that the model WHS laws are now in force in every jurisdiction except Victoria. Victoria's duty sits under its own Occupational Health and Safety Act, backed by the Occupational Health and Safety Regulations 2017, the same position this site's SWMS builder already carries.
Western Australia used to be worth a second look here and no longer is. Its Work Health and Safety Act 2020 replaced the old Occupational Safety and Health Act 1984, and WA has run on the model laws since. None of this changes what a Take 5 looks like on the page, because no regulation defines the form either way. It matters only for the duty sitting behind the habit, not for a threshold or a category count the way it does on a document the law actually names.
Why the order matters
Stop, look, assess, manage, proceed only mean something answered in that order. Assessing a hazard that was never actually looked for is a guess. A control written against a risk that was never assessed is a bigger one, dressed up as a smaller one. So this tool will not call a check ready because a later box got filled in while an earlier one stayed blank. Naming a control for a hazard nobody wrote down, or marking proceed on a task that was never named, does not make the check mean anything, and the result panel says so rather than quietly accepting it.
The trap: a hazard with nothing against it
The most common way a Take 5 gets filled in badly is not a blank form. It is a hazard genuinely spotted, named honestly, and then left with nothing written about what changes before the task starts. That is not a smaller version of a complete check. It is an incomplete one, and this tool treats it that way: a hazard with no control keeps the whole check at not ready until something is actually written against it.
What this does not do
This does not make a task safe, and it does not discharge anybody's duty by existing. Filling in five fields is not the same as the thinking that is supposed to happen behind them, and no free tool can know whether that thinking genuinely happened on your site today. What it gives you is a record that the check was done, in the right order, with every hazard actually resolved rather than only noted. Whether the task is genuinely safe to start is still the judgement of the person standing in front of it.
Closing the tab loses it, and that is the trade
The check is built in your browser. Nothing you type is sent anywhere, there is no account, and closing the tab loses it unless you print or save the page first. Your own copy, on your own device, for your own crew.
Common questions
Is a Take 5 a legal requirement in Australia?
No. No regulation names a Take 5, requires one, or sets out what has to be on it. It supports the general risk management duty that already exists under the model WHS Act and the model WHS Regulations, rather than being a duty in its own right. Where a document is genuinely required, such as a SWMS for high risk construction work, that requirement comes from the regulation, not from this check.
How is a Take 5 different from a SWMS?
A SWMS is required by the model WHS Regulations before any of eighteen defined kinds of high risk construction work starts, and it has to identify the hazards, the controls and how those controls are implemented, monitored and reviewed. A Take 5 is not required by any regulation and is far shorter: five steps, done at the task, usually in about two minutes. Neither replaces the other. A job that needs a SWMS still needs the SWMS.
Do I still need a Take 5 if the job already has a SWMS?
Yes, and they answer different questions. A SWMS is prepared in advance for defined high risk work. A Take 5 is done at the actual moment a task starts, which is when the site, the weather, the plant nearby and the crew can all have changed since the SWMS was written. A good Take 5 is often where somebody notices the SWMS no longer matches what is actually in front of them.
Why won't this let me mark a hazard as sorted once I've named it?
Because naming a hazard is only the look step. A hazard identified with nothing written about what will be done about it is not a finished check, it is an unfinished one wearing the shape of a finished one. This tool keeps the whole check at not ready until every recorded hazard has a control against it, which is the trap most paper versions of this check let straight through.
What happens if I genuinely find nothing?
Say so. Looking properly and finding nothing is a real, honest answer, and the tool treats it as a complete check on its own rather than forcing you to invent a hazard to fill a box. What it will not accept is finding nothing and also having a hazard sitting in the list further down. That is a contradiction, not a completed check, and it gets flagged rather than waved through.
Does Victoria run a different version of the Take 5?
Not in the check itself, because nothing here comes from a regulation that could vary by state. Victoria's underlying duty sits under its own Occupational Health and Safety Act rather than the model WHS Act every other jurisdiction now uses, which is the same distinction this site's SWMS builder already draws. That affects the law behind the habit, not the five steps themselves.
Is this the same as Canada's FLHA card?
Close in spirit, not in law. Canada's field level hazard assessment is the same idea, a short check done at the start of a task rather than a project level document, and it is now standard practice across Western Canadian construction and energy work. Neither it nor a Take 5 is a statutory form anywhere. If you are working in Canada, the FLHA card is the one written for that market.
Does anything I tick get sent anywhere?
No. The check runs in your browser and nothing you type leaves your device. There is no account and no email address, and closing the tab loses the check unless you print or save the page first.