In Short
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Officers must stay up to date with WHS developments and ensure ongoing compliance.
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The right to disconnect now applies to small businesses, highlighting fatigue management as a safety risk.
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Effective WHS relies on policies being meaningfully implemented, enforced, and understood by all workers.
Tips for Businesses
Ensure your WHS policies are clear, accessible, and regularly communicated. Require workers to confirm they understand and will follow procedures. Provide training, monitor compliance, and take action if policies are not followed. Regularly review risk management approaches, including fatigue management, to protect workers and reduce the risk of incidents.
Table of Contents
Officers must maintain compliance and stay current with work health and safety developments as part of their ongoing duties. This roundup assists you in meeting these responsibilities by highlighting significant recent changes and developments in WHS.
Legislative Update
Right to Disconnect
Since 26 August 2025, the right to disconnect provisions have extended to apply to small business employers. The right to disconnect provides employees with the right to refuse to monitor, read or respond to contact (or attempted contact) outside their working hours, unless doing so is unreasonable. This includes contact from both employers and third parties such as clients.
Although there have been minimal claims or decisions in this area while the provisions applied to larger businesses, the extension to small businesses may lead to an increased focus on fatigue management as a workplace safety hazard. Importantly, the right to disconnect is not the only avenue for addressing fatigue-related workplace risks. You should continue to refer to relevant guides for fatigue management and ensure comprehensive risk management approaches.
NSW WHS Regulations
The Work Health and Safety Regulation 2017 (NSW) was set to be automatically repealed on 1 September 2025 and has therefore been remade. The Work Health and Safety Regulation 2025 (NSW) commenced on 22 August 2025 and largely continues the previous Regulation. In addition, the remake seeks to:
- enhance clarity and improve readability;
- eliminate outdated and unnecessary provisions; and
- standardise licensing, training, and supervision requirements across work categories.
Learn how to manage employment disputes and effectively protect your business from legal action. This guide delves into the most common employment disputes.
Cases and Incidents
A recent decision of the New South Wales Industrial Court has emphasised the importance of verifying and enforcing existing safety systems in practice.
1. What Happened?
A construction company that was the designated principal contractor on a worksite was prosecuted following an incident where a worker, who was a subcontractor, fell backwards during work operations while not wearing a safety harness.
The company had various safety measures in place, including:
- site induction processes;
- Safe Work Method Statements (SWMS) review and approval;
- daily prestart meetings;
- site supervision and inspections; and
- SWMS observations.
2. What Was the Outcome?
The Court stated that the company, despite having various safety measures, failed to take reasonably practicable steps to eliminate or minimise the risk of the worker falling from the height.
Specifically, the company did not enforce the policies and procedures they had in place to a meaningful degree. In practice, workers were not:
- required to follow the policies in place;
- required to develop and enforce the site-specific safe systems;
- required to use the safety equipment prescribed in policies; and
- prohibited from engaging in unsafe activities.
The company also failed to verify that the workers understood and followed the safe work systems.
The company was fined $93,000, which was then reduced by 25% to $69,750 to reflect a guilty plea.
3. Key Takeaways
To ensure compliance, your business should
- Establish WHS Policies and Procedures: It is essential to establish policies and procedures in the workplace that dictate workplace health and safety.
- Ensure Meaningful Implementation and Enforcement: It is just as important to ensure that the policies that dictate workplace health and safety are meaningfully implemented and enforced.
- Require Written Confirmation of Compliance: We recommend requiring workers to provide written confirmation (such as by email) that they have read, understood, and will comply with relevant policies.
- Provide Regular Training: Regular training should also be provided to ensure workers understand their obligations under these policies.
- Ensure Access to Policies and Equipment: You must ensure that workers have access to both the policies themselves and any relevant equipment or materials that the policies require.
- Monitor Compliance and Take Action for Non-Compliance: Additionally, you must monitor compliance with policies and implement appropriate measures when non-compliance occurs, which may include additional training or disciplinary action.
Questions?
If you need legal assistance with a WHS matter or need help identifying an officer, book a consultation call on Prism. As a member, you can request unlimited legal advice consultations.
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