In May 2024, Safe Work Australia’s (SWA) Chief Executive, Marie Boland, said she would “be reestablishing a research team and that team will look at options for how we support research and evaluation for the future.” On June 12 2025, SWA announced its “New roadmap for work health and safety and workers’ compensation research“. Progress on occupational health and safety (OHS) is welcome, but it is lacking a few key elements.
Victoria is developing its own Code of Practice for managing (and hopefully preventing) psychosocial hazards in the workplace, ahead of amendments to its occupational health and safety (OHS) laws in late 2025. But how powerful and enforceable can a Code of Practice be? A new book by Arie Freiberg, “Regulation in Australia“, helps explain this, but the future could look better.
Currently, workplace politics in New South Wales are wrapped up in arguing about changes to the way workers’ compensation covers those with a psychological injury. The justification, as it was with similar issues in Victoria last year, is that the growth in workplace mental health claims apparently jeopardises the viability of the workers’ compensation scheme. These arguments exclude the long-term occupational health and safety (OHS) solution to the problem, and it is not as if governments were unaware of this emerging financial challenge.
SafeWorkSA has published fascinating information about preventing “harmful workplace behaviours.” The webpage’s eye-catching part is the Hierarchy of Controls for Managing the Risk of Harmful Workplace Behaviours, but the article is curious.
The audience for information from occupational health and safety (OHS) regulators is supposedly everyone, but it is rarely read by anyone other than OHS advocates. However, any information about psychosocial risks and hazards needs to be written in a tone that attracts the attention of those in businesses who have established ownership of these hazards, primarily the Human Resources (HR) person. SafeWorkSA’s page fails to reach this target.
This weekend, all the talk in Australia has been about the massive and unexpected electoral swing to the Australian Labor Party (ALP) in the federal election. Most pundits were expecting a majority government, at least, but now the ALP has a substantial majority in the House of Representatives. Possible constraints from a new Senate have yet to be identified.
But this blog is about occupational health and safety (OHS), so why start with an election summary? Industrial relations and, therefore, OHS were almost entirely absent from the election campaigns.
Australia’s occupational health and safety (OHS) has improved over the decades. Yet, preventable injuries and fatalities persist—over 180 quad bike deaths since 2011, for example, with rollovers leading the charge. We have regulations, campaigns, and a national body in Safe Work Australia, but something’s still missing. Why aren’t workplace redesign efforts—like fitting rollbars on quads or rethinking production systems—more widespread? The answer might lie in a hidden barrier: the WHS profession’s shaky grasp of financial literacy, compounded by the stranglehold of financial underwriting models and capital market expectations. Maybe it’s time we admit that the safety game isn’t just about risk assessments—it’s about money, and we’re not playing it well enough.
New information about the need to prevent psychosocial hazards at work keeps coming. Victoria will join the workplace mental health train a little later than planned. It went from engine to caboose in four years. SafeWorkNSW has released guidance on Designing Work to Manage Psychosocial Risks and an enforceable undertaking by a New South Wales mine from a psychosocial incident.
