Guide · checked against the regulators' documents on 11 September 2026

A prestart checklist template, and what Australian law actually requires

Most pages offering you a prestart template also tell you the law demands one. We went and read the law, and it does not, except in one case. Here is the honest version, and then a checklist built from the regulators' own documents rather than from somebody's imagination.

The short version

There is no provision of the Heavy Vehicle National Law that requires a prestart checklist. What the law imposes is a primary duty on every party in the chain to ensure the safety of their transport activities so far as is reasonably practicable, and the NHVR puts roadworthiness squarely on the operator. A prestart check is the ordinary way an operator demonstrates that duty was met. It is evidence, not a form the law names.

There is one exception, and it is a real one. If you are accredited under the maintenance module, a daily check is required in those words, and the record of it is audited. Accreditation is voluntary, so the daily check is compulsory for the operators who opted in.

Plant and machinery sit under work health and safety law instead, which asks for something different again: maintenance and inspection by a competent person, in the order the manufacturer says. And if you run only in the Northern Territory or Western Australia, the Heavy Vehicle National Law has not commenced where you are at all.

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Is a prestart check required, or not

This is the question people are actually asking when they search for a template, and it deserves a straight answer rather than a download.

The duty is one of outcome. Every party in the chain of responsibility must ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the safety of the transport activities relating to the vehicle. Nothing in that says checklist. What makes a checklist near enough to unavoidable is the second half of the test: reasonably practicable is something you prove with evidence. If a wheel comes off, the question is what you checked, what you found, what you did about it and when. An operator with dated, signed daily checks can answer. An operator without them is relying on being believed.

The NHVR is direct about where roadworthiness lands:

The operator of a heavy vehicle is responsible for ensuring that each vehicle is roadworthy.
Creating heavy vehicle daily checks, NHVR

The same document is equally direct that its own list is not a rule. It calls a daily check a quick visual inspection that can be undertaken on a heavy vehicle prior to leaving the yard, depot or rest area, and then says the list serves as a guide only, should be adapted to each operator's circumstances, and does not replace a full safety inspection. Any page that hands you a template and calls it compliance is selling you something the regulator declined to sell.

The registered Master Code of Practice does use the words, and it is worth knowing where it sits. It recommends developing prestart and post operation inspection procedures for before and after a driving shift, training drivers in them, and running a system that records and actions maintenance issues, defects and defect notices, with unsafe vehicles taken out of service. A registered industry code is voluntary. Following it is evidence of what was reasonably practicable, which is a more useful thing than a rule anyway.

Where it is compulsory: accreditation

Under the NHVAS Maintenance Management standards, the system must include a daily check for each vehicle when it is in use, and the documented instruction has to say when the check is carried out, who carries it out and how it is recorded.

On 1 August 2026 the amended Heavy Vehicle National Law commenced and Heavy Vehicle Accreditation began replacing NHVAS, with up to three years for existing operators to move across. The daily check survived the change intact. The current scheme guideline puts it first:

The Daily Check is the first step in the vehicle maintenance system and ensures that a vehicle is safe before being used on the road.
Heavy Vehicle Accreditation Scheme Operator Guideline 2026, NHVR

It is aimed at the parts that stop the vehicle being safe, brakes, couplings, tyre pressure and tyre integrity among them, and the guideline is explicit that it is not a detailed mechanical inspection. Alongside it sits fault recording and reporting: drivers must be able to report faults as they occur, on the trailer as well as the hauling unit, and the system has to separate the faults needing urgent action from the ones that can wait, then track each one through to a decision about repair.

The Northern Territory and Western Australia are different

Nearly every template on this search assumes the Heavy Vehicle National Law covers the whole country. It does not, and the NHVR says so itself:

Although the HVNL has not commenced in Western Australia or the Northern Territory at this time, the HVNL applies equally to vehicles from those jurisdictions when they cross into one of the states or territories where the HVNL applies.
Heavy Vehicle National Law and Regulations, NHVR

The NT Government is just as plain about accreditation: you do not need national heavy vehicle accreditation to operate in the Territory, and the national scheme is a voluntary one that offers concessions on mass, maintenance and fatigue.

What does apply to an NT operator is worth knowing, because "the HVNL is not ours" is not the same as "nothing applies". Heavy vehicles are registered and regulated under Territory law, and the NT adopted the National Heavy Vehicle Inspection Manual as the standard a heavy vehicle has to meet to pass a roadworthy inspection here. Work health and safety law applies to plant in the ordinary way, administered by NT WorkSafe. And the moment a truck crosses into South Australia or Queensland, the HVNL applies to it there.

The practical upshot for a Darwin yard: your prestart list should be built against the inspection manual and your own work health and safety duties, and if any of your gear runs interstate, build it to satisfy the HVNL as well, because that is the harder test.

Plant and machinery, which is a different law again

An excavator is not a heavy vehicle for these purposes, it is plant, and the duty comes from the work health and safety regulations. The person with management or control of plant must ensure maintenance, inspection and, if necessary, testing is carried out by a competent person. NT WorkSafe defines that as somebody who has acquired, through training, qualification or experience, the knowledge and skills to carry out the task.

The order those checks follow is where most summaries go wrong. It is the manufacturer's recommendations first. If there are none, a competent person's recommendations. Annually only where neither of those is reasonably practicable. Annual inspection is the last resort in that list, not the default.

Notice what is missing: none of that is an operator check before use. We searched the Northern Territory and New South Wales editions of the Managing the risks of plant in the workplace Code of Practice on the day, and the phrases for a prestart or pre operational check do not appear in either. The operator check lives in regulator guidance instead. SafeWork NSW describes those inspections as visual checks and functional verification, conducted at the beginning of each shift to catch obvious faults and confirm the controls and travel limits work, undertaken by people familiar with that model of plant, which in practice means trained and experienced operators.

The checklist: heavy vehicles

These are the NHVR's own groupings from its guide to creating daily checks, with the items it names under each. Adapt them to your gear. A tipper and a tanker do not have the same list, and the guide says as much.

Brakes
Brake failure indicators operational, pressure and vacuum gauges operational, air tank drain valves operational.
Couplings
Fifth wheel or ballrace and its mountings secure, towbar, drawbar and couplings securely mounted, kingpin correctly engaged in the fifth wheel jaws, and every air line, electrical connector and ABS or EBS connector correctly attached to the trailer.
Wheels, tyres and hubs
Tyres correctly inflated, tread condition and depth, wheels secure.
Structure and body condition
Panels and readily visible structures secure, horn operational.
Lights and reflectors
Lights including clearance lights operational, reflectors and lenses present and in good condition.
Mirrors
Present, in good condition, secure and adjusted.
Windscreens and windows
Windows operational, wipers and washers working well enough to keep forward vision clear.
Engine, driveline and exhaust
No fluid leaking from the vehicle.
High voltage systems
High voltage wiring undamaged, the electric vehicle number plate label fitted, no electrolyte leaking, and the rechargeable energy storage system warning light cycling when the ignition is switched on.
Gas systems
For hydrogen, CNG and LNG: the container in good condition and adequately restrained, no evidence of leaking gas lines, the hydrogen system warning light cycling at ignition, and the right number plate label fitted.

The last two groups are recent and you will not find them on a template that was written three years ago and copied since. If you run an electric or gas fuelled unit, they are the ones that matter most, because they are the checks nobody has habits for yet.

For anything more detailed, the National Heavy Vehicle Inspection Manual is the authority. It holds the full list of components and the criteria each is inspected against, and it is the standard the Northern Territory adopted for roadworthy inspections here.

The checklist: plant

Shorter, and deliberately so. This is what SafeWork NSW actually names for a check before use. Adding twenty invented items would make it look more thorough and make it less true.

Build outward from there using the manufacturer's manual for the machine, which is the first authority the regulations point to anyway, and the hazards the plant Code lists: entanglement, crushing, cutting, falling objects, plant overturning, an operator ejected, fluids or gas under pressure, electricity, fire. On an excavator that turns into guarding and ROPS, hoses and rams, attachment pins, the undercarriage, and cracks in the boom, arm and bucket.

What turns a checklist into a record

A tick sheet on a clipboard in the cab satisfies almost none of this, and it is where most operators who have genuinely done the work still come unstuck. The accreditation standards are the one place the regulator spells out what a record has to carry, and the same four things are what anybody assessing your system will look for:

  1. 1When the check was done, as a date and a time, not a rough idea of the week
  2. 2Who did it, by name, because an unsigned sheet proves nothing about who looked
  3. 3How it was recorded, written down as a procedure somebody could follow
  4. 4Where a fault went, because a fault found on a prestart belongs on the fault report and not in somebody's head

The fourth is the one that fails audits. A prestart that finds a fault and stops there has created a record of somebody noticing a problem and doing nothing, which is worse evidence than no record at all. The fault has to become a job, the job has to close, and where a repair was deferred rather than done, the record has to name the person who made that call.

How long to keep them

Under accreditation, three years. Every document and record associated with the accreditation must be kept for a minimum of three years, and that is the number the audit works to.

Outside accreditation, no period is named for prestart records specifically. For plant, the sensible guidance is to keep the records for as long as you have the machine and hand them over with it when you sell. Three years is a safe floor for anything else, because it is what the regulator's own standard asks of the operators it audits.

Ignore the seven year figure if you meet it. It comes from an audit guide, where it describes an auditor keeping recordings of the audit itself. It is not a record keeping period for operators, and repeating it has people storing paper for twice as long as anyone asked.

What most prestart templates get wrong

Every claim below appears on pages currently ranking for this search. Each was checked against a primary source on 11 September 2026 and none of them holds up.

The Heavy Vehicle National Law requires a prestart checklist.
It does not name one. It imposes a primary duty to ensure safety so far as is reasonably practicable, and puts roadworthiness on the operator. The checklist is how you show it, not what is asked for.
Every heavy vehicle operator has to do a daily check.
Only accredited operators have to, in those words. Accreditation is voluntary. For everybody else the daily check is strong evidence of a reasonable system.
The plant Code of Practice requires prestart checks.
The Northern Territory and New South Wales editions of Managing the risks of plant in the workplace were both searched on the day and neither contains the phrase. The Code is about inspection by a competent person. The operator check before use lives in regulator guidance instead.
Plant has to be inspected annually.
Annual inspection is the fallback, used only where following the manufacturer's recommendations or a competent person's recommendations is not reasonably practicable. The order matters and it is commonly printed backwards.
Keep your records for seven years.
Three years is the accreditation figure. The seven year number comes from an auditor retaining recordings of an audit, which is not a duty on you at all.
The HVNL applies across Australia.
The NHVR states it has not commenced in Western Australia or the Northern Territory. It applies to vehicles from those places when they cross into a state where it has commenced.

Doing it on a phone instead of a clipboard

A paper checklist works right up to the moment somebody asks you to produce three months of them for one machine, or to show that the fault found on the eleventh of the month was fixed. That is not a paperwork problem, it is a retrieval problem, and it is the reason this software exists.

What AssetPass does with a prestart

A new account starts with six checklists already built, prime mover, rigid truck, trailer, a three monthly trailer inspection, plant and light vehicle, and every item on them is yours to edit. Items that stop the machine are marked, so failing one tells the driver to stop rather than to keep going and mention it later. The driver does the check on a phone in the yard, photographs anything that failed, and the record is filed with the date and their name on it.

A failed item becomes a fault, the fault stays open until somebody closes it on a job card showing what was done and what it cost, and the meter reading taken at the same time keeps the service countdowns honest. For any period you choose, the compliance statement counts prestarts filed, faults raised, resolved and unresolved, job cards completed and services overdue, and says on its own face what it does not measure.

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Questions people ask

Is a prestart checklist required by law in Australia?
Not by that name, and not for everybody. No provision of the Heavy Vehicle National Law requires a driver or operator to fill in a prestart checklist. What the law imposes is a primary duty on every party in the chain to ensure the safety of their transport activities so far as is reasonably practicable, and the NHVR says plainly that the operator is responsible for ensuring each vehicle is roadworthy. A prestart check is the ordinary way an operator shows they met that duty, which is a different thing from a form the law names. If you are accredited, it changes: then a daily check is required in those words.
So who does have to do a daily check?
Operators accredited under the maintenance module. Under the old NHVAS Maintenance Management standards the system must include a daily check for each vehicle when it is in use, and under the Heavy Vehicle Accreditation scheme that replaced NHVAS on 1 August 2026 the daily check is the first control in the vehicle maintenance system. Accreditation itself is voluntary. So the honest answer is that the daily check is mandatory for the operators who chose to be accredited, and is evidence of a reasonable system for everybody else.
What has to be on a prestart checklist?
For a heavy vehicle, the NHVR publishes a guide to creating daily checks and it is the closest thing to an official list. It groups the items as brakes, couplings, wheels, tyres and hubs, structure and body condition, lights and reflectors, mirrors, windscreens and windows, engine, driveline and exhaust, and, on newer gear, high voltage systems and gas systems. For plant, SafeWork NSW names visual checks for cracks, distortion and wear, controls returning to off when released, signs of hydraulic or fuel leaks, fluid levels in range, tyre pressures, and legible decals and warning signs. Both lists are starting points meant to be adapted to the machine in front of you.
Do prestart checks work differently in the Northern Territory?
Yes, and most templates get this wrong. The NHVR states that the Heavy Vehicle National Law has not commenced in Western Australia or the Northern Territory, so an NT operator running only in the NT is not under the HVNL, and the NT Government says plainly that you do not need national heavy vehicle accreditation. What still applies is NT work health and safety law for plant, and the National Heavy Vehicle Inspection Manual, which the NT adopted as the minimum standard a heavy vehicle must meet to pass a roadworthy inspection. Cross a border into a HVNL state and the HVNL applies to you there.
What does the law say about plant and machinery?
It says something different again, and it is not about prestart checks. The model Work Health and Safety Regulations require the person with management or control of plant to ensure maintenance, inspection and, if necessary, testing is carried out by a competent person, following the manufacturer's recommendations first, a competent person's recommendations if there are none, and annually only where neither of those is reasonably practicable. Annual inspection is the last resort in that order, not the default, and a great many websites have it backwards. The operator check before use is described in regulator guidance rather than in the regulation.
How long do I have to keep prestart records?
Under accreditation, three years: every document and record associated with the accreditation has to be kept for a minimum of three years. Outside accreditation no period is named for prestart records, and the practical guidance for plant is to keep the records until you part with the machine and hand them to whoever takes it on. Ignore anything that tells you seven years. That figure is about an auditor retaining recordings of an audit, not about an operator keeping maintenance records.

Sources

Everything above was read off these documents on 11 September 2026. If a regulator changes one, this page is wrong until it is checked again, and the date at the top will tell you how long it has been.

One note on precision. The amended Heavy Vehicle National Law commenced on 1 August 2026 and the section numbering could not be confirmed against the consolidated Act on the day this was checked, so the duties above are named rather than numbered. If you need to cite a section, take the number from the current consolidation rather than from any guide, including this one.

This is a guide, not legal advice. If your operation is accredited, your auditor and the regulator's own guidance material are the final word.