Planting and trimming vegetation

If you’re planting crops and plants on your property you should first check for overhead powerlines and avoid planting under or near them. Electricity can jump—a long way, so if you’re using machinery it’s important to respect exclusion zones around powerlines.

Safety tips

• Contact your electricity distributor for safety advice before commencing the work.
• Treat all powerlines as live.
• Look at the site and identify hazards.
• Assess the risk of injuring yourself and others.
• Use appropriate control measures.
• Do not allow any part of your body or anything you’re holding or have attached to your body to enter the exclusion zone.
• Do not trim trees or manage vegetation where any part of the tree or vegetation is within the exclusion zone.
• Do not trim trees or manage vegetation where any part of the tree or vegetation could fall or be carried into the exclusion zone.

Be aware of potentially dangerous situations like:

• wind or wet weather pushing vegetation into the exclusion zone
• hot weather causing powerlines to sag lower
• obstacles preventing safe access
• pruning equipment such as chainsaws kicking back or moving inadvertently
• the boom of an elevating work platform or cherry picker straying into exclusion zones.

For more information and examples of control measures when clearing vegetation, read the Electrical safety code of practice 2020 - Working near overhead and underground electric lines (PDF, 476.8 KB).