Work health and safety review: What directors need to know

Safe Work Australia’s Best Practice Review proposes 21 changes to Australia’s model work health and safety (WHS) laws, with potential implications for boards.

On 19 October 2026 Safe Work Australia published the Best Practice Review of the model WHS laws. 

The Review makes 21 recommendations to change Australia's model WHS framework. The intention behind the recommendations is to drive consistent national action to protect workers. This is against the backdrop of increasing concern about workplace fatalities – with 222 workplace deaths in 2025, the highest annual number since 2012. 

Key recommendations and implications for directors

1. Harmonisation

The Review found continued strong support for nationally harmonised WHS laws, which is something long supported by the AICD and its members.

The Review also identified challenges in providing the same obligations for businesses operating across multiple jurisdictions. This is because maintaining effective harmonisation depends on both aligned laws, and on consistent application and enforcement of the laws across Australia.

As noted in the AICD’s submission to the Best Practice Review, Australia’s WHS laws are fractured, with the Commonwealth and all States other than Victoria having implemented the model WHS laws, but with each State and Territory departing from the model WHS laws in different ways.  For example, Victoria has not implemented model WHS laws and has its own regime. This creates additional complexity and cost for organisations that operate across multiple states.

The Review recommends that WHS ministers recommit to nationally consistent laws, with consistent protections for workers and obligations for employers.

The Review also recommends harmonised WHS reviews across jurisdictions and prioritisation of agreed national amendments in jurisdictional parliaments. Ultimately whether this occurs remains up to the individual State and Territory jurisdictions

2. Three major challenges reshaping Australian workplaces

The Review identified three major challenges that are reshaping Australian workplaces and creating new or intensified WHS risks: artificial intelligence (AI), climate change and harmful workplace behaviours, including work-related violence and harassment.

It recommends national strategies for each of these challenges, to drive coordinated action and to ensure the WHS framework keeps pace with changing workplaces and emerging risks.

On AI, it is proposed that the new national strategy includes a regime to monitor how the model WHS laws are being applied, interpreted and enforced. Safe Work Australia will then be able to consider whether there is a need for any legislative clarifications to address gaps and uncertainties or whether these can be dealt with through industry codes and guidance. In line with the AICD’s position, the Review clarified that future amendments to the model WHS Act should be technology neutral to ensure that the model WHS framework applies to AI and digital technologies in the same way as it would to other technologies.

On climate change, the Review recommends Safe Work Australia develop a strategy to ensure a nationally consistent understanding of how WHS laws apply to climate-related hazards and the clean energy industry. This is intended to assist Safe Work Australia consider any necessary amendments to the model WHS laws.

On work-related violence and harassment, the Review recommends clarifying that the duty of care under the model WHS Act includes management of risks arising from harmful workplace behaviours. The Review also recommends new model WHS regulations, which will focus on prevention of work-related violence and harassment. It is proposed that the new regulations specifically call out gendered violence as part of work-related violence.

3. Workplace fatalities

Against the backdrop of increasing workplace fatalities, the Review calls for stronger national coordination to prevent workplace deaths and identifies immediate actions for Safe Work Australia. These include establishing a dedicated strategic national approach to reduce work-related fatalities and improving mechanisms to ensure coronial findings are shared, assessed and acted on in a timely and consistent manner across Australia.

In this context, Marie Boland, CEO of Safe Work Australia said, “Australia must do more to learn from every workplace fatality and turn those lessons into action. That is why the Review recommends immediate action by Safe Work Australia to work directly with high-risk industries and relevant unions to establish a strategic national approach to reducing work-related fatalities, and with jurisdictions to improve how coronial findings are shared and acted on across Australia.”

The States and Territories have also agreed to do further work to consider opportunities for harmonisation of laws relating to industrial manslaughter, given general criminal procedure and sentencing frameworks are not uniform across jurisdictions.

4. Volunteers

Another recommended change is that the model WHS Act be amended to ensure that the intention to exempt volunteers from liability for officer duty breaches is clear. This has been a key area of advocacy for the AICD and is a welcome proposal.

5. Insurance for legal costs

The Review includes a recommendation that a contract of insurance or grant of indemnity cannot be used to cover the legal fees of a person subject to a WHS prosecution. This was recommended on the basis that it is consistent with recent reforms prohibiting companies from indemnifying directors against penalties under the Australian Consumer Law and from any legal cost incurred in defending an action where a director is found to be liable.

The AICD has consistently opposed limitations to insurance that is available for directors in relation to WHS.  In fact, the AICD’s submission argued for a reinstatement of the ability for directors to procure insurance for pecuniary penalties.  The AICD has serious concerns with the proposed amendment as it believes that the prohibition on insurance may have the unintended consequence of deterring skilled and experienced individuals from taking on directorships.

The AICD intends to engage with any reform processes on model WHS or state-based laws or s to implement this recommendation.

6. Compliance and enforcement

The Review recommends the development of a new National Compliance and Enforcement Policy, in recognition that WHS laws are one of the most fractured across jurisdictions.

The Review also highlights a concern that existing monetary penalties represent a marginal cost to large businesses, meaning that they are not a sufficient deterrent. Accordingly, Safe Work Australia will explore alternative penalty models for large businesses, to ensure there are appropriate market signals to elevate the management of WHS risks alongside other competing priorities in these organisations.