Model Work Health and Safety Act (Australia)
Model WHS Act. Work Health and Safety in Australia
The harmonised legal framework for workplace safety in most Australian jurisdictions. PCBU duties, reasonably practicable inspection, and the documentation that defends a duty holder.
The Model Work Health and Safety Act is the harmonised legal framework for workplace safety adopted by most Australian states and territories. Victoria continues to use its Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004, but the principles overlap. The Model Act establishes the concept of a "person conducting a business or undertaking" (PCBU), a broad category that catches employers, principal contractors, landlords, and many others, and imposes duties of care that flow from it. The single most important compliance question for any PCBU is: can you produce documented evidence that you have done what is reasonably practicable to manage workplace risks?
What Model WHS Act covers
The scope and focus of the standard in plain language.
PCBU duties of care
A PCBU owes duties to workers and to others whose health or safety may be affected by the business. The duty is to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety of those persons.
Officer due diligence
Officers of PCBUs (directors, senior managers) must exercise due diligence to ensure the PCBU complies. Due diligence has six specific elements including keeping up-to-date knowledge, ensuring resources, ensuring processes for hazards, and verifying compliance.
Worker duties
Workers must take reasonable care for their own health and safety, take reasonable care that their acts do not adversely affect others, and comply with reasonable instructions and policies of the PCBU.
Notifiable incidents
Specific incidents must be notified to the regulator immediately, death, serious injury or illness, dangerous incident. Failure to notify is itself an offence.
Key obligations
What the standard actually requires of inspectors, operators, or duty holders.
Identify and assess hazards
PCBUs must identify reasonably foreseeable hazards in the workplace, assess the risks they pose, and consider how to control them. This is a continuous obligation, not a one-time exercise.
Implement control measures
Apply the hierarchy of controls: eliminate the hazard if possible, otherwise minimise it through substitution, isolation, engineering controls, administrative controls, and (last) PPE.
Conduct reasonably practicable inspection
Workplaces, plant, structures, and access ways must be inspected at frequencies appropriate to the risk. Inspection records are the primary evidence of compliance.
Consult with workers
PCBUs must consult workers (and their health and safety representatives) on matters that may affect their health and safety. Consultation cannot be tokenistic, it must be genuine.
Provide information, training, and supervision
Workers must be given the information, training, and supervision necessary to work safely. Records of training and competency are part of the evidence base.
Document everything
When something goes wrong, the regulator and the courts will look for documented evidence. Inspection records, training logs, incident reports, and risk assessments are the difference between defence and prosecution.
Common pitfalls
Where inspectors and duty holders most often get caught out.
- !Treating WHS as a compliance department problem instead of an operational discipline.
- !Inspection records that exist but are not date-stamped, signed, or photo-evidenced, easy to dismiss as retrospective fabrication.
- !Verbal instructions and toolbox talks that are never recorded, leaves no defensible audit trail.
- !Assuming a contractor PCBU absolves the principal PCBU, duties overlap and both can be liable.
- !Failing to update risk assessments when work conditions change, the obligation is continuous.
- !Ignoring the duty to consult workers, a regulator who finds no consultation evidence will treat that as a serious failing.
How InspectAndGo helps with Model WHS Act
- Inspection workflows for common areas, plant, and shared services with GPS-verified evidence
- Recurring inspection schedules with reminders so frequencies are not missed
- Photo capture per observation, embedded with GPS coordinates and timestamps
- Defect tracking with severity classification and rectification deadlines
- Audit-ready inspection records that support PCBU due diligence and officer duty of care
- Multi-asset portfolio support for landlords, principal contractors, and asset managers
- Export inspection records as PDF, CSV, or via API for compliance reporting
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Read articleFrequently asked questions
Which states have adopted the Model WHS Act?
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New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory, the Northern Territory, and Western Australia (which adopted it in 2022) have all adopted versions of the Model Act. Victoria continues to operate under its Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004, which has similar duty-of-care concepts but different procedural requirements.
Are commercial landlords PCBUs?
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Yes, in most cases. A commercial landlord typically conducts a business of leasing property, which makes them a PCBU. Their duties extend to workers in the building (including their tenant's employees), to common areas, and to shared services. The lease should clearly allocate WHS duties between landlord and tenant for the parts each controls.
What is "reasonably practicable"?
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The Model Act defines reasonably practicable in terms of weighing the likelihood and severity of harm against the cost, time, and trouble required to control the risk. It is not "anything possible", the controls have to be proportionate to the risk. Records of how the assessment was made are part of demonstrating compliance.
How does mining safety fit with the Model WHS Act?
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Mining safety regulation is layered. NSW operates the WHS (Mines and Petroleum) Regulation 2022 over the WHS Act. WA moved to the WHS (Mines) Regulations 2022. Queensland still uses the Coal Mining Safety and Health Act 1999 and the Mining and Quarrying Safety and Health Act 1999, both of which pre-date the Model Act and remain in force. Operators in multiple states need to track each regime separately.
Can officers be personally liable?
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Yes. Officers (directors, senior managers, anyone who makes decisions affecting a substantial part of the business) can be personally prosecuted for failing to exercise due diligence, even if the PCBU is also prosecuted. Penalties can include fines and, in the most serious cases under industrial manslaughter laws in some jurisdictions, imprisonment.
Make WHS inspection records defensible
InspectAndGo gives PCBUs and officers the audit trail they need. Recurring inspections, GPS-verified evidence, and exportable records.