Summary

Australian WHS laws impose duties on businesses to protect all persons at their workplace, not just employees, including contractors, visitors, and workers from other businesses.
Psychosocial hazards (such as bullying, excessive job demands, and poor role clarity) are now a formal compliance obligation requiring active risk management.
Safe Work Australia is consulting on reforms that may introduce binding tribunal-based dispute resolution as an alternative to the current inspector-led process.
This article is a plain-English guide to recent WHS legislative updates, case law, and compliance obligations for Australian business owners operating under the model WHS laws and state-based equivalents.
It has been prepared by LegalVision, a commercial law firm that specialises in advising clients on work health and safety compliance.

Tips for Businesses

Audit your site to identify risks to all visitors, contractors, and third parties – not just staff. Implement traffic management plans, induction procedures, and physical controls where plant and pedestrians interact. Review psychosocial risk assessments regularly and consult workers. Monitor Safe Work Australia’s dispute resolution reforms and update internal procedures if changes are adopted.

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Legislative Updates
WHS Case Update: Duty of Care Extends Beyond Employees
Key Takeaways
Questions?

Staying informed about work health and safety developments is essential for officers to meet their compliance obligations. This WHS update covers recent changes and key developments to help officers maintain compliant and safe workplaces.

Legislative Updates

World Day for Safety and Health at Work

Tuesday 28 April 2026 marked World Day for Safety and Health at Work. This year, the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) theme centred on ensuring a healthy psychosocial working environment for all workers.

What are psychosocial hazards?

Psychosocial hazards are hazards arising from the design or management of work, the working environment, workplace machinery or equipment, or workplace interactions and behaviours that can cause psychological and physical harm. These hazards must be identified, addressed and effectively managed to maintain safe and healthy workplaces.

Common psychosocial hazards include:

job demands;
low job control;
poor support;
lack of role clarity;
poor organisational change management;
inadequate reward and recognition;
poor organisational justice;
exposure to traumatic events or material;
remote or isolated work;
poor physical environment;
bullying and harassment; and
workplace conflict, violence and aggression.

The Current Landscape

In 2021-22, Safe Work Australia recorded approximately 10,000 serious mental stress claims. Over half (52.2%) were linked to workplace harassment, bullying, or work pressure. Since then, regulatory obligations have tightened, particularly in Victoria, making proactive psychosocial risk management a legal requirement.

What Should Employers Be Doing?

Employers must treat psychosocial hazards with the same rigour as physical safety risks. This means:

conducting regular risk assessments to identify psychosocial hazards;
consulting workers about the risks they experience; and
implementing controls that address root causes, not just symptoms.

Practical steps include:

reviewing workload distribution and job design to ensure demands are reasonable;
providing workers with appropriate autonomy over how they perform their work;
establishing clear reporting lines, role descriptions and performance expectations;
training managers to recognise and respond to psychosocial risks;
implementing effective systems for managing complaints about bullying, harassment and conflict;
regularly reviewing change processes to minimise uncertainty and stress; and
ensuring remote or isolated workers have adequate support and communication channels.

Psychosocial risk management is now a core compliance obligation. Employers who embed it into their WHS frameworks now will be better placed to meet regulatory expectations and support worker wellbeing.

Improving Dispute Resolution Under Model WHS Laws

Safe Work Australia closed consultation on 20 April 2026 regarding proposed improvements to dispute resolution under the model work health and safety (WHS) laws.

Current Dispute Resolution Framework

The current model requires parties to make reasonable efforts to resolve disputes in a timely, final and effective manner using either an agreed workplace procedure or the default procedure in the WHS Regulations.

If unresolved, any party may ask the regulator to appoint an inspector to assist. The inspector can provide advice, recommendations or exercise compliance powers such as issuing notices.

Limitations

The existing framework has significant limitations. Inspectors cannot arbitrate most disputes, when compliance functions fail, they can only educate. This leaves complex disputes unresolved, particularly where WHS issues intersect with industrial relations or sexual harassment frameworks.

There is also no mechanism for final resolution when inspector involvement fails. This creates administrative burden, diverts inspectors from core compliance work, and can leave disputes unresolved for months or years.

What This Means for Employers

If adopted, these changes would give employers and workers an alternative pathway for resolving entrenched WHS disputes. Parties could access specialist tribunal processes designed to deliver binding outcomes, rather than relying on inspectors who may lack jurisdiction or expertise for complex matters.

Employers should monitor whether Safe Work Australia proceeds with these reforms. If implemented, employers would need to update internal dispute resolution procedures to reflect the tribunal referral option and train relevant personnel on when and how to use it.

Guide to Employment Disputes

Learn how to manage employment disputes and effectively protect your business from legal action. This guide delves into the most common employment disputes.

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WHS Case Update: Duty of Care Extends Beyond Employees

A NSW court has confirmed that businesses owe work health and safety duties to all persons at their workplace, not just employees. This includes contractors, delivery drivers, visitors and anyone else who may be affected by the business’ operations.

What Happened

A logistics company operating a container depot was prosecuted after a truck driver was fatally struck by a reach stacker while walking across the site. The driver was employed by a separate transport company and was at the site to collect a shipping container.

The business argued it did not owe the driver a duty of care because he was not their employee. The court rejected this argument.

The Court’s Decision

The court found the business guilty of a Category 2 offence under the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (WHS Act). The business was fined for failing to ensure the health and safety of “other persons” at the workplace.

The court held that:

under s 19(2) of the WHS Act, the duty extended to all persons affected by the business’ operations, regardless of employment status;
this included the truck driver, despite no employment or contractual relationship; and
the business failed to implement reasonably practicable measures to manage the risk of plant-pedestrian collisions.

What the Business Failed to Do

The Court found the business should have:

conducted a risk assessment identified hazards from mobile plant and pedestrian interactions;
implemented physical separation through barriers, gates and exclusion zones where possible;
developed and enforced a traffic management plan with clear right-of-way rules;
provided adequate induction and instruction to all visitors about site safety procedures;
installed adequate lighting in areas where plant and pedestrians interact; and
considered additional safety devices such as presence sensors on mobile plants.

Critically, the business had provided safety training to its own employees about the risks of mobile plant, but failed to extend this information to visiting drivers.

Key Statistics

12%: Mental health conditions accounted for 12% of serious workers’ compensation claims in 2023–24, a 14.7 per cent increase from the prior year.
30%: Psychological claims in New South Wales rose 30% between 2018–19 and 2022–23, compared with 11 per cent for physical claims.
$58,615: Median compensation for mental health conditions reached $58,615 per serious claim versus $15,743 for all injuries and diseases in 2020–21.

Sources

Safe Work Australia (October 2025)
SafeWork NSW (July 2024)
Safe Work Australia (February 2024)

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Key Takeaways

Many businesses mistakenly believe their WHS obligations only extend to their own employees. This case makes clear that your duties cover anyone who may be affected by your work, including:

clients and customers visiting your premises;
members of the public near your operations; and
workers from other businesses operating at your site.

Questions?

If you need assistance reviewing your WHS obligations to non-employees, or implementing systems to manage risks to visitors and contractors, book a consultation call on Prism. As a member, you can request unlimited legal advice consultations.

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