This Guide provides practical guidance for a person conducting a business or undertaking and workers on managing health and safety risks associated with tunnelling work.

It should be read together with the Code of Practice: Construction work and other codes of practice relevant to tunnelling work. A list of useful resources is at Appendix A.

This Guide applies to constructing:

- tunnels, caverns, shafts and associated underground structures, and
- cut-and-cover excavations - those physically connected to ongoing underground construction tunnels and those cut-and-cover operations that create conditions characteristic of underground construction.

This Guide does not apply to mining. When some materials are excavated, like coal, the process is considered mining. In those circumstances the Work Health and Safety (WHS) Regulations for mining and related codes of practice apply.