The new 2026 Master Code  fundamentally changes how Chain of Responsibility risks must be managed and documented to satisfy regulator expectations rather than just be good practice. The 2026 Master Code  is now officially published by the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator as a Registered Industry Code of Practice to support safety across the heavy vehicle industry. It sets out what parties in the Chain of Responsibility reasonably need to do to manage hazards and risks under

The landscape for psychosocial risk regulation and enforcement in NSW has just shifted, with tight deadlines and new compliance responsibilities looming for PCBUs. The Work Health and Safety Regulation 2025  came into force on 22 Aug 25 , replacing the 2017 regulation and carrying forward most of the existing framework with key NSW‑specific changes. One of the most significant of these is a strengthened duty to manage psychosocial risks in the workplace in line with the hier

Queensland regulators are now making psychosocial risk management a core part of workplace safety obligations, and inspectors are paying attention to how duty holders document and act on these risks. Workplace Health & Safety Queensland has published updated practical guidance on managing workplace psychosocial risks aimed at helping PCBUs take a structured approach to identifying, assessing, controlling and monitoring hazards that could harm psychological health. The update

Victoria’s approach to workplace safety has just entered a new era where psychological health risks are no longer secondary but part of enforceable legal duties for employers. Victoria’s Occupational Health and Safety (Psychological Health) Regulations 2025  began on 01 Dec 25  under the OHS Act 2004 . These Regulations place positive duties on employers  to identify, assess and control psychosocial hazards  in workplaces with the same rigour now expected for physical hazard

Australia-wide, national data and regulator trends show prosecutions and penalties trending upwards, with a significant body of new data available for analysis. Safe Work Australia’s national prosecutions dashboard captures prosecutions under WHS laws recorded since 01 Jan 20, and indicates 317 prosecutions in 2024 alone, with total penalties of about $164 million issued across 1,373 matters between 2020 and 2024. Construction, manufacturing and transport, postal and wareho

In 2025, regulators are not reinventing load restraint. They are doubling down on it. The release of the NHVR Load Restraint Guide 2025, alongside refreshed education materials from Safe Work Australia, makes one thing clear. Accurate, adequate load restraint remains a frontline control in heavy vehicle safety, and regulators are still seeing the same failures play out on Australian roads. Despite decades of guidance, load shift, load loss, and inadequate restraint continue

Enforceable Undertakings (EUs) are not theoretical policy tools or compliance curiosities. Across Australia they are being actively used, accepted, and publicly tested by regulators. When you line them up across jurisdictions, a clear picture emerges of what regulators are rewarding, and what they are quietly rejecting. This article draws together published Enforceable Undertakings from 2025 across multiple regulators and sectors, not to catalogue them, but to show what they

A construction worker in Darwin has been seriously injured after an unsecured excavator bucket fell during preparation for transport. The incident prompted a safety alert from NT WorkSafe, not because the hazard was novel, but because the controls were well known and still not applied. This is not a freak event, it's risk management failure playing out in a familiar way. What happened During preparation for transport, smaller excavator attachments were placed inside a larger

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When people think of a regulator, they picture a watchdog for safety. A body that steps in when systems fail, when workers are ignored, and when leaders forget that duty of care is not optional. That is how the law intends it to work. The reality is often much harder to watch. Across industries, government, and Defence, more professionals, managers, and injured workers are finding themselves shouting into the void. They report hazards, raise legitimate concerns, and cite t

Blood, mud, and shit. That was the reality of my inspections in abattoirs. You’d walk through the gates and get hit by the metallic tang...

The Incident In January 2012, a B-double truck operated by Lennons Transport veered onto the wrong side of the Hume Highway near...

WorkSafe Queensland’s Electrical Safety Fortnight  (1–14 September 2025) presents a prime opportunity—not just for Queensland, but for...

On 29 August 2025, Safe Work Australia  published a new model Code of Practice: Managing risks of respirable crystalline silica . This...

The Workplace Injury Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Act 2025 (Vic)  has kicked in, and it’s reshaping how workplace deaths,...

In a landmark decision, the High Court of Australia addressed the extent to which health and safety legislation intersects with aviation...

In a significant step towards national consistency, Western Australia adopted the model Work Health and Safety (WHS) Act on 10 November...

As the first WorkSafe Inspector to issue an infringement notice to be paid in Victoria, I hope to share some insight in to what the...

The WorkCover scheme in Victoria, designed to protect workers and support them in case of injury, has been a crucial part of the state’s...

Section 19 of the Model Work Health and Safety (WHS) Act in Australia outlines a fundamental aspect of workplace safety: the primary duty...