The psychosocial regulatory landscape

From 1 December 2025, all Australian jurisdictions will have work health and safety (WHS) regulations in effect governing the management of psychological hazards in your organisation’s workplaces. This recognises that psychosocial hazards, such as violence, sexual harassment, bullying, fatigue, stress and job demands, are just as harmful as physical hazards.

The focus on psychological hazards isn’t groundbreaking. Employers or persons with management or control of workplaces under WHS laws in Victoria, or persons conducting businesses or undertaking (PCBUs) under the WHS laws in all other jurisdictions, have always had duties to manage health and safety risks impacting their workers or others touched by their operations. This has included not only physical health, but also psychological health.

There is no shortage of additional content published by WHS regulators across the country providing further information on how such risks can be eliminated if possible, or otherwise effectively managed through the use of control measures. 

See the ready reckoner table below prepared by KWM to assist you to locate relevant materials at a glance, in addition to AICD & KWM’s Primer for boards on governing WHS psychosocial risks, providing guidance on:

• understandingpsychosocial hazards;
• thelegal and regulatory landscape;
• directors’due diligence obligations; and
• the board’s governance role.

How to achieve compliance

Essentially, to comply with WHS regulations relating to psychological risk, your organisation needs to ensure such risks are being captured and managed by your safety management system, including by application of its risk assessment framework.  At a high level, as noted in our Primer, this involves four steps, undertaken on a regular basis:

1. identifying hazards associated with your organisation’s activities and the environment within which it operates;
2. assessing the risks associated with those hazards;
3. identifying, assessing and implementing available and suitable control measures to eliminate risks to psychological health, or if that is not possible, to reduce those risks, so far as is reasonably practicable; and
4. reviewing the effectiveness of control measures to ensure they are working as intended, or are updated as necessary.

An effective risk assessment framework should plan for and incorporate consultation with your workforce and other duty holders with which your organisation interacts at each of the above steps.

The regulations in each jurisdiction provide guidance on the nature of the control measures to be considered and adopted in a specific order and the matters to be taken into account when considering them.  Additionally, there is a specific obligation for PCBUs operating in Queensland to also have a written prevention plan targeting sexual harassment and sex and gender-based harassment.

The last piece of the puzzle – Victoria

From 1 December 2025, regulations relating to the management of psychosocial hazards will be in effect in Victoria and are largely consistent with the other jurisdictions across Australia. 

A point of distinction is that the Victorian regulations explicitly seek to constrain duty holders from heavily relying upon information, instruction and training as a control measure.  They do this by providing that information, instruction and training can be relied upon as the only control measure if the hazard cannot be eliminated, or otherwise reduced, so far as is reasonably practicable, by altering the management of work, plant, systems or work, work design and workplace environment. Additionally, if information, instruction and training is used in combination with those control measures, it must not be the predominant control measure.

WorkSafe Victoria intends to continue delivering a range of communication activities to ensure stakeholders and the broader Victorian community are informed about the changes and know where to find more information. To ensure you keep up to date with future communications from WorkSafe Victoria, you can register here.

The consequences for getting it wrong

A failure to effectively manage risks related to psychological health can reflect a breach of WHS duties and result in an investigation by a WHS regulator and subsequent prosecution. If proven, penalties vary depending on the provision breached and as between the Australian jurisdictions but can nonetheless be significant for your organisation. Additionally, directors and senior managers may have individual exposure based on their own WHS duties. Industrial manslaughter offences can also be relevant.

Enforcement activity

WHS regulators across the country are active in this space. For example, regulators are becoming increasingly prepared to become involved in change processes, investigating whether duty holders have specifically identified, assessed, and controlled psychosocial hazards and risks related to restructures and other change programs, by issuing prohibition and improvement notices. Separately, regulators are prosecuting offences with particulars relating to bullying, sexual harassment and fatigue.