The Australian WHS regime is described as "harmonised" — and largely it is. Seven of the eight Australian jurisdictions have adopted some version of the Model WHS Act drafted by Safe Work Australia. Victoria, the meaningful exception, runs a parallel regime under the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 that covers the same ground via different language.
For a multi-state operator — a logistics company with depots in three states, a construction firm working across the eastern seaboard, a clinic group with practices in different jurisdictions — the harmonised label can be misleading. The duties are largely uniform. The regulators, the penalty regimes, the notification thresholds, the codes of practice, and the recent reforms differ enough to matter.
This guide sets out the practical differences between the three largest jurisdictions: New South Wales, Victoria, and Queensland.
The statutory foundations
Each jurisdiction has a primary WHS Act and a subordinate Regulation that fleshes out the operational detail. The Codes of Practice provide guidance on how the regulator expects the regulation to be applied in practice — not legally binding, but materially relevant in any enforcement action.
| Jurisdiction | Primary statute | Regulation | Primary regulator |
|---|---|---|---|
| NSW | Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (NSW) | WHS Regulation 2017 (NSW) | SafeWork NSW |
| VIC | Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 (Vic) | OHS Regulations 2017 (Vic) | WorkSafe Victoria |
| QLD | Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (Qld) | WHS Regulation 2011 (Qld) | Workplace Health and Safety Queensland (within Office of Industrial Relations) |
NSW and Queensland both adopted the Model WHS Act in 2011 with minimal local variation. Victoria's OHS Act predates the Model and Victoria has never harmonised — though most operational duties are functionally equivalent.
Duties — the same in substance, different in detail
All three regimes impose:
- A primary duty of care on a PCBU (NSW/QLD) or an "employer" (VIC, with the same effective coverage).
- Duties on officers (NSW/QLD section 27; Victoria section 144) to exercise due diligence.
- Duties on workers to take reasonable care of themselves and others.
- A consultation requirement.
- A risk management framework based on the hierarchy of controls.
The differences are at the margins:
In NSW and Queensland, the PCBU concept captures every kind of business and every kind of arrangement — partnerships, sole traders, charities, government departments, unincorporated associations. The duties of officers are framed by reference to the company law concept of an officer.
In Victoria, the duty-bearer is an "employer." The concept is narrower — it requires an employment relationship — though Victoria has captured most of the same coverage through separate provisions for self-employed persons and persons in control of workplaces. For a multi-state operator, the practical effect is the same: you owe a duty wherever you operate.
High-risk construction work — the regulation 291/299 issue
Regulation 299 of the Model WHS Regulations (adopted in NSW and QLD) requires a SWMS for any work in the eighteen scheduled high-risk construction work categories. Victoria's OHS Regulations have an analogous concept but use different language and a slightly different list.
In NSW and Queensland, the eighteen-category list is identical (see our SWMS guide for the full list).
In Victoria, regulation 333 of the OHS Regulations 2017 (Vic) requires a SWMS for "high risk construction work" defined slightly more broadly than the harmonised list. Victorian SWMS must cover the same eighteen categories plus additional work captured by the Victorian Code of Practice for Construction Work, which catches some scaffolding and powered mobile plant scenarios that the harmonised list doesn't.
For a multi-state construction operator, the practical implication is that a SWMS written to the Victorian standard is generally accepted in NSW and Queensland, but the converse isn't always true. PolicyPack generates SWMS to the higher standard by default for any pack that includes Victoria as a jurisdiction.
Notifiable incidents — the reporting thresholds
All three regimes require notification of incidents to the regulator. The categories are largely consistent — death, serious injury or illness, dangerous incident — but the specific definitions and the notification timeframes differ.
NSW (s 35 WHS Act 2011)
A notifiable incident is the death of a person, a serious injury or illness of a person, or a dangerous incident. Serious injury or illness is defined in section 36 — includes immediate treatment as an inpatient, immediate treatment for serious head/eye/burn injury, certain infections (HIV, Hep B/C from work-related exposure), and others. Dangerous incident is defined in section 37 — collapse of structure, uncontrolled release of substance, electric shock, fall, etc.
Notification is required immediately after the PCBU becomes aware of the incident. Written notification is required within 48 hours.
Victoria (Part 5 OHS Act 2004)
The reporting categories are largely equivalent but use different language. Notifiable incidents include death, serious injury (defined in section 37 with a slightly different list to NSW's section 36), and incidents involving hazardous substances or plant.
Notification is required immediately by the fastest possible means. Written notification within 48 hours.
The practical difference: Victoria's list of "serious injury" is slightly narrower than NSW's, and Victoria has additional reporting requirements for certain industries (mines, major hazard facilities) that NSW doesn't.
Queensland (s 35 WHS Act 2011)
Identical to NSW in substance, with the same eighteen-category dangerous incident list. Notification is to Workplace Health and Safety Queensland.
A multi-state operator should design a single notification flow that captures the broadest set of triggers — i.e. notifies on everything in the union of NSW, Victoria, and Queensland definitions. PolicyPack's incident notification procedure does this by default.
Industrial manslaughter — the most consequential recent reform
All three jurisdictions have now legislated industrial manslaughter offences, but the timing, the elements, and the penalties differ.
NSW
The Crimes Legislation Amendment (Industrial Manslaughter) Act 2024 commenced in June 2024. The offence is triggered by a death caused by gross negligence in respect of a WHS duty. Maximum penalty: 25 years' imprisonment for an individual; $20m for a body corporate.
Victoria
The Workplace Safety Legislation Amendment (Workplace Manslaughter and Other Matters) Act 2019 commenced in July 2020. Victoria was the first harmonised state to legislate. The offence requires negligent conduct causing death where the duty-holder knew or ought to have known of the substantial risk. Maximum penalty: 25 years' imprisonment for an individual; approximately $19.85m for a body corporate (16,500 penalty units, indexed annually).
Queensland
Queensland legislated the offence in 2017 — the first Australian jurisdiction to do so. The offence is in section 34C of the WHS Act 2011 (Qld). Maximum penalty: 20 years' imprisonment for an individual; $13.34m for a body corporate.
The substantive elements are similar across the three states — gross negligence in respect of a WHS duty, causing death — but Victoria and Queensland have a longer track record of prosecutions than NSW. As of 2026, there have been more than a dozen successful industrial manslaughter prosecutions across the three states.
For a multi-state operator, the implication is that a death in any of the three states can give rise to a prosecution under the local industrial manslaughter regime. The defence in each case turns on whether the PCBU took reasonably practicable steps to manage the risk — and the practical evidence of that is a current, dated, structurally complete WHS system.
Penalty units
All three jurisdictions express penalties in penalty units, which are indexed periodically.
| Jurisdiction | Value of one penalty unit (2025-26) | Source |
|---|---|---|
| NSW | $110 | Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Act 1999 (NSW) |
| VIC | $197.59 | Monetary Units Act 2004 (Vic) |
| QLD | $161.30 | Penalties and Sentences Act 1992 (Qld) |
The practical effect: an offence with a 1,500-penalty-unit maximum is $165,000 in NSW, $296,385 in Victoria, and $241,950 in Queensland. Victoria's penalty units are the highest of any Australian jurisdiction.
Codes of Practice — the differences at the operational level
Each jurisdiction maintains its own suite of Codes of Practice. While many are functionally equivalent, the differences at the operational level matter for the way you draft your SWMS and your control measures.
A few examples of recent divergence:
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Silica dust. NSW's amendment to the WHS Regulation effective 1 September 2024 imposes additional silica-specific obligations. Victoria has equivalent provisions in the OHS Regulations 2017 (Vic) Part 4.1, with similar but not identical air monitoring thresholds. Queensland implements silica controls through a Code of Practice rather than a regulation amendment. A multi-state operator should write to the strictest of the three thresholds.
-
Psychosocial hazards. NSW formally introduced the duty in late 2022 and the Code of Practice in May 2023. Victoria has parallel provisions in the OHS Regulations and a separate WorkSafe compliance code. Queensland has a Managing the risk of psychosocial hazards at work Code of Practice issued 2022.
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Engineered stone. The federal ban took effect 1 July 2024 and applies in all states. State-level enforcement differs slightly — NSW and Victoria have committed compliance resourcing; Queensland's enforcement posture is more reactive.
Practical advice for multi-state operators
Three practical principles emerge from all of this.
Write to the highest standard. A WHS Policy that satisfies Victoria will generally satisfy NSW and Queensland. A SWMS that satisfies the broader Victorian high-risk construction work definition will satisfy the harmonised list. An incident notification procedure that captures the union of all three states' triggers will work everywhere.
Maintain jurisdiction-specific clauses where the regulator differs. The state regulator named in a notification flow has to be the right one for the location of the incident. The penalty unit value cited has to be the local one. The Code of Practice referenced has to be the one the local regulator issues. PolicyPack generates a separate jurisdiction clause for each state in scope.
Track the amendment cycle in each state separately. The Model WHS Regulations are amended at the national level, but each state adopts the amendments on its own timetable. Victoria's regulator publishes amendments on its own schedule independent of Safe Work Australia. A multi-state operator needs a watch on each regulator separately.
The Subscription tier exists to do exactly this — when an amendment lands in any of the eight Australian jurisdictions you operate in, the affected sections of your pack regenerate, and you receive a notification with the diff. For a multi-state operator, this is the alternative to maintaining eight regulator subscriptions internally.
What to do next
If you operate in more than one Australian state: generate a multi-jurisdiction pack. The build flow asks you to nominate the states you operate in. The output includes jurisdiction-specific clauses for each.
If you operate in NSW only and you'd like to understand what changed in the recent amendments: see our blog post on the NSW WHS amendments.
If you'd like to see a sample multi-jurisdiction pack: download the sample. The jurisdiction matrix appears on page 14.
The harmonised label sells a degree of uniformity that doesn't quite exist in practice. The good news is the differences are tractable — they're documented, indexed, and bounded. The bad news is that operating across multiple jurisdictions on a single template, written to the lowest common denominator, increasingly fails the regulator's actual enforcement posture. The middle path — a single pack with jurisdiction-specific clauses generated against each state's current regime — is the path PolicyPack was designed for.
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