Someone got a shock at work?
Call 000 if anyone's injured. Cut the power at the outlet or the main switch first if that's safe, and only then go near them. Under NT rules, unsafe gear at a workplace is disconnected and stays out of use until it's repaired or tested and found safe, or replaced.
What the NT regulations say
Offices: every 5 years, or a safety switch
For office work, extension leads, power boards and plug-in gear up to 20 A that gets moved around must either be inspected and tested by a competent person at least once every 5 years, or be plugged into a type 1 or type 2 safety switch. A power board feeding office equipment is the regulation's own example.
Shops, cafes, salons and childcare: every year
Service work covers most other businesses: cooking in a restaurant, selling from a shop, caring for children at a childcare centre. The same gear must be tested at least once every year, or used on a type 1 or type 2 safety switch. A hotel vacuum and a salon blow dryer are the examples given.
Workshops: every 6 months, plus a safety switch
For manufacturing work, specified portable tools like a handheld grinder must be tested at least once every 6 months, or yearly if double insulated, and be plugged into a type 1 or type 2 safety switch as well. Not one or the other.
Hostile environments, wherever you are
If plug-in gear is exposed to moisture, heat, vibration, mechanical damage, corrosive chemicals or dust in normal use, it must be regularly inspected and tested by a competent person, and new gear checked for obvious damage before first use. In a Darwin wet season, with afternoon humidity averaging over 70 per cent, it's worth asking whether your gear qualifies.
Building sites follow AS/NZS 3012
Electrical equipment used for construction work in the NT has to comply with AS/NZS 3012, the standard for construction and demolition sites.
What the tag has to show
When gear passes, the tester attaches a durable tag with the test date, the date it must be retested by, and at least one way to identify who did it: their name, their electrical contractor licence number, or the name or licence number of the business they work for. Gear that fails gets a tag warning people not to use it, and comes out of service straight away.
For hostile environment testing, the record has to show who tested it, when, the outcome and when the next test is due, and it can be the tag itself. Keep it until the next test, or until the item is gone for good.
Your safety switches need testing too
The safety switch route only works if the switch does. Fixed safety switches at an NT workplace are tested by a competent person under AS/NZS 3760 when first connected, then at that standard's intervals. A portable one gets its test button pushed each time it's plugged in, and any that fail are tagged and withdrawn.
Where gear is used somewhere damp or knocked about, or moved between sites, the regulations also call for a safety switch with a tripping current of no more than 30 mA on outlets up to 20 A.
Who can do the testing
The regulations ask for a competent person: someone whose training, qualifications or experience lets them do the task correctly. They don't name one licence. An electrician has the edge when testing finds a faulty power point or circuit, because that repair is licensed work, and since 1 July 2026 an NT contractor who advertises must show their licence number.
Questions for a Darwin tester
- Which category does our business fall under: office, service or manufacturing?
- Would safety switches on our outlets be a better option than regular testing?
- Will you test our safety switches to AS/NZS 3760 as well?
- Does any of our gear count as being in a hostile environment?
- Can you repair faulty power points on the same visit, and what's your contractor licence number?
What we'd do in a Darwin business
We'd work out which category the business falls into first, because it changes the answer completely. For an office, protecting the outlets with safety switches and testing those switches properly may beat tagging every lead every few years. For a workshop, it's both, every 6 months. Either way, we'd book an electrician who can fix what they find.
Want a specialist to sort it?
Tell us the job and your postcode. We match the licence-checked local electrician who does this kind of work, and they call you. No ring-around, and your number goes to them alone.