WorkSafe Victoria has actively campaigned against occupational violence for the last few years. The pandemic, understandably, brought the focus onto violence against emergency services workers and healthcare staff. Recently the campaign has focussed on gendered violence at work. The intention is to be inclusive, to address the variety of violent acts and the variety of …
Australia’s trade union movement has been at the forefront of many of the occupational health and safety (OHS) changes, especially workplace stress and bullying. Other than Industrial Manslaughter laws, its most recent campaign targeted to a workplace hazard has revolved around work-related gendered violence. Last week WorkSafe Victoria released a guide to employers on “work-related …
The IAWBH2026 sessions offered a revealing snapshot of how international practitioners are grappling with bullying, harassment and gendered violence at work—and how closely these discussions align with Australia’s psychosocial‑hazard framework. Several presentations landed squarely within the Australian work health and safety (WHS) model, particularly those that treated these issues as structural hazards requiring organisational controls. … Continue reading “What was Missing from the Bullying and Harassment Conference?”
When the International Labour Organisation declared safe and healthy work a fundamental human right in 2022, Australia quietly joined a global shift that reframed workplace safety from a technical discipline to a matter of human dignity. It didn’t make headlines. It didn’t trigger a legislative overhaul. But it did change the ground rules. The question …
Last week, I attended a webinar on psychological safety that confirmed all of my worst fears about the Human Resources approach to addressing psychosocial factors and mental health at work....
The release of new psychological safety workplace regulations and guidance in Victoria is a big thing. Partly because this closes the gap, with similar occupational health and safety (OHS) regulations now in place throughout Australia. Partly because Victoria was an early advocate for changes to these workplace hazards, and the government sat on its hands …
Victoria’s Minister for WorkSafe, Danny Pearson, has emerged from the occupational health and safety (OHS) wilderness to restate his commitment to introducing legislative amendments on psychosocial hazards at work. He has been stalling on these for a very long time, but he has recently provided an update to Parliament....
