Workplace Health and Safety

From 1 July 2026, section 26A of the NSW Work Health and Safety Act 2011 will commence. The new provision means that where an approved Code of Practice exists, a person conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU) must either: Comply with the Code of Practice; or Demonstrate that an alternative approach provides an equivalent or higher standard of health and safety. This represents a significant shift in how organisations may need to demonstrate compliance during regulatory in

Effective psychosocial risk management does not require organisations to reinvent the wheel. In most cases, the foundations already exist within your current risk management, health and safety, human resources, leadership and performance management systems.

Safe Work Method Statements (SWMS) are not only a legal requirement, but they are also crucial for ensuring safety in various work environments, particularly in high-risk industries. However, there are significant barriers that can affect their effectiveness, especially for workers with low literacy, reading difficulties or big egos.

Poor safety advice does not just create inefficiency, it can directly contribute to incidents. Across multiple high-profile events, investigations have shown that risks were often known, but not effectively managed. Controls were either not in place, not working, or not verified. This is where ineffective safety capability becomes a real business risk. When safety professionals focus on paperwork instead of critical controls, or fail to escalate serious risks

In December 2025, this unit was officially superseded and replaced with HLTPAT010 – Collect Specimens for Drugs of Abuse Testing. For organisations running workplace testing programs, and for individuals responsible for specimen collection, it is important to understand what changed and what the transition means.

When we think about workplace health and safety, our minds often go straight to employees, contractors, or maybe even volunteers. But what about visitors? People who pop in briefly, attend a meeting, drop off a parcel, or tour your facility? Under Australian WHS laws, visitors have a right to be safe – and businesses have a legal duty to protect them.

Work health and safety (WHS) has evolved. What once passed as best practice is no longer effective in today’s increasingly complex work environments. What does a modern safety leader actually look like? It’s not someone who hides behind procedure manuals or only shows up when there’s an incident. A modern-day safety leader is proactive, strategic, and credible. They lead with influence, not authority. They connect with people, not just paperwork.

Facilitating a risk workshop sounds straightforward. Get everyone in a room and talk about risk, right? But if you’ve ever run one that dragged on with no clear outcomes, or worse, one where people felt unheard or confused, you’ll know it’s not that simple. An effective risk workshop has a structure, a purpose, and most importantly, a skilled facilitator who can extract the right information from the right people.

Supervision is often overlooked as a control, but make no mistake, if done properly it’s one of the most effective risk controls available to organisations across all industries. While it might not be a piece of equipment or a formal system, supervision is a dynamic, real-time control. One that can intervene, course-correct and support risk-based decision making at the exact moment it matters most.

When reviewing a risk register or investigating an incident, it’s common to find a long list of risk controls associated with a single hazard. But a long list of controls does not mean the hazard is being effectively managed. In fact, many of those listed controls may do very little to prevent harm.

You’ve updated your controls, you’ve done the toolbox talks, you’ve updated training packages and changed procedures, and yet – the same types of incidents keep happening. It’s easy to assume the problem is the worksite, the workers, or the hazard itself. But what if the real issue is your investigation process? What if your system isn’t learning – it’s just logging?

If you're a woman working in WHS, risk, or audit, you probably didn’t land here by accident. You care deeply about people, systems, and outcomes. But while the work you do is critical, the professional development pathways available to women in these fields can often feel vague, male-dominated, or stuck in outdated models.

In this article, we’ll break down the most common types of risk assessments; Traditional Risk Assessment, WRAC, JSEA, SWMW, Bowtie, HAZOP, HAZID, and personal risk assessments like SLAM and Take 5—so you can understand when to use each, and why.

We know that incidents occur when controls fail. That’s the relationship we work with in every investigation. So, if a critical control failure is picked up in a CCV — even if there’s no injury, no damage, and no catastrophic event — shouldn't we treat that just as seriously?

Mental health and safety are deeply connected. Poor mental health can lead to poor decision-making, lack of concentration, and increased likelihood of errors or incidents. On the other side, high-risk workplaces, unclear expectations, poor job design, or lack of support can create or worsen mental health issues.

A Critical Control Performance Standard defines what “good” looks like for your most important controls. It outlines how the control should be implemented, who’s responsible, what training is needed, how to verify it, and what to do if it fails. Without it, even the best controls can quietly fall apart.

One significant flaw that often goes unnoticed is how risk matrices inherently "accept" high-consequence, low-likelihood risks.

What good is a control if the worker implementing it doesn’t understand it?

Embracing discomfort is essential for effective risk management. Leaders who are curious enough and comfortable enough to be uncomfortable w

In risk management, we spend so much time discussing whether controls are effective under normal conditions. But what if they fail?