One standard, two systems: Addressing Psychosocial Hazards
Every employer in Australia now has a legal duty to manage psychosocial hazards in the same way they manage physical ones. That much is settled. What is not settled, at least for anyone working across state borders, is how that duty is written, enforced and tested from one jurisdiction to the next.
Victoria sits outside the harmonised Work Health and Safety (WHS) framework that most of the country runs on. It regulates workplace safety under its own Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004, and it was the last major jurisdiction to put explicit psychosocial regulations on the books. For community sector organisations, many of which deliver programs in more than one state, the differences matter. They shape what your risk register needs to show, what an inspector will ask for, and where your exposure sits if a worker is psychologically injured.
This article sets out how Victoria’s approach compares to New South Wales, Queensland and the rest of Australia, and what that means in practice.
The national baseline: harmonised WHS
Most of Australia now manages psychosocial risk through the same set of words. In 2022 Safe Work Australia amended the model WHS Regulations to require a person conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU) to identify psychosocial hazards, eliminate the risks so far as reasonably practicable, and otherwise minimise them. The jurisdictions that use the model laws then adopted those amendments one by one: NSW on 1 October 2022, Tasmania in December 2022, Western Australia on 24 December 2022, Queensland and the Commonwealth on 1 April 2023, the Northern Territory on 1 July 2023, the ACT in November 2023 and South Australia in December 2023 (Milionis, 2023).
The model regulations do more than name the duty. They list the matters a PCBU must consider when choosing controls, including the duration, frequency and severity of exposure, how hazards interact, the design of work and systems of work, and the physical environment. Each jurisdiction backs this with a code of practice that sets out common hazards such as high or low job demands, poor support, traumatic events, bullying and harassment.
The result is a broadly consistent national floor. An organisation that knows how to comply in Hobart can, with some local adjustment, comply in Perth or Darwin. That consistency is the benchmark against which Victoria’s approach should be read.
New South Wales: first mover, now tightening the back end
NSW was the first state to make psychosocial risk an explicit regulatory duty, with its amended WHS Regulation in force from 1 October 2022. Its code of practice on managing psychosocial hazards predates even that. NSW employers have therefore had the longest run at this, and the regulator has had the longest run at enforcing it.
The more significant recent change in NSW sits on the compensation side rather than the prevention side. Reforms passed in November 2025 and February 2026 narrow which psychological injuries are compensable, requiring a defined “relevant event” such as bullying, harassment, violence, traumatic exposure or excessive work demands. The whole person impairment threshold for lump sums and common law damages rose to 25 per cent from 1 July 2026, and the definition of reasonable management action now expressly covers performance feedback, discipline and misconduct investigations (Jessup et al., 2026).
This matters for prevention because the incentives shift. When fewer psychological claims get through the compensation system, the WHS duty becomes the main lever holding employers to account for how work is designed. NSW employers should not read a tighter claims regime as a lighter compliance load. The obligation to identify and control psychosocial hazards has not moved.
Queensland: the most prescriptive of the harmonised states
Queensland adopted the psychosocial amendments on 1 April 2023, alongside its Managing the risk of psychosocial hazards at work Code of Practice 2022 (DWF, 2023). It then went further than the model in two ways. First, along with the Commonwealth and the ACT, it requires PCBUs to apply the formal hierarchy of controls to psychosocial risks, a step the model regulations leave out.
Second, Queensland now requires a written prevention plan for one specific psychosocial hazard. From 1 March 2025, every PCBU must have a written plan for preventing sexual harassment and sex or gender-based harassment. The plan must document the controls in place, the factors considered in choosing them, and how complaints are made, investigated and communicated. It must be reviewed after every report, on request from a health and safety representative or committee, and at least every three years, with fines of up to $30,000 per failure (DWF, 2024).
The lesson from Queensland is that documentation is becoming part of the duty, not just evidence of it. A Queensland inspector can ask to see a plan, and its absence is itself a breach. That is a different compliance posture from simply being able to show you thought about the risk.
Victoria: same destination, different road
Victoria’s Occupational Health and Safety Amendment (Psychological Health) Regulations 2025 commenced on 1 December 2025, together with a new compliance code (Fleeton & Aitken, 2025). They sit under the OHS Act 2004 rather than the WHS model, so the duty holder is the “employer” rather than the PCBU. The core obligation will look familiar: identify psychosocial hazards, eliminate the risk so far as reasonably practicable, and otherwise reduce it.
The sharpest difference is how Victoria treats training. Employers must reduce risk by changing the management of work, systems of work, work design or the work environment. Information, instruction and training cannot be relied on exclusively unless those changes are not reasonably practicable, and cannot be the predominant control where other changes are in place. The model regulations carry a general preference for higher-order controls, but Victoria spells out the limit on soft controls more explicitly.
In other respects Victoria is lighter than its neighbours. Its regulations do not include the model’s prescribed list of factors to consider. Written prevention plans are encouraged but not mandatory, and there is no requirement to report psychosocial complaints to WorkSafe, despite both being floated in the original 2022 proposal. The compliance code fills some of the gap: a breach of it is not an offence in itself, but WorkSafe treats its contents as what an employer should reasonably know.
For Victorian employers, the practical message is that a wellbeing program and a mandatory e-learning module will not satisfy the regulations. If your main response to high caseloads or client aggression is resilience training, you are relying on exactly the kind of control the regulations say cannot carry the load.
Psychosocial Risks: What this means if you work across borders
| Victoria | NSW | Queensland | Other harmonised jurisdictions |
Framework | OHS Act 2004 | WHS | WHS | WHS |
Psychosocial rules in force | 1 Dec 2025 | 1 Oct 2022 | 1 Apr 2023 | Dec 2022 to Dec 2023 |
Prescribed factors to consider | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Explicit limit on training as a control | Yes | No | Hierarchy of controls applies | Hierarchy applies in Cth and ACT |
Mandatory written prevention plan | No | No | Yes, for sexual harassment | No |
A multi-state organisation cannot run one policy and assume it covers everyone. The table shows that the gaps are not cosmetic. Victoria is stricter on how you control risk, Queensland is stricter on what you must write down, and NSW is changing what happens after an injury occurs.
The sensible response is to build to the highest common standard. That means a written risk assessment for each psychosocial hazard, controls that change the work itself rather than the worker’s coping, and a documented plan for harassment that would satisfy a Queensland inspector wherever you operate. An organisation built to that standard will meet its obligations in every state, and it will be better placed if a single jurisdiction raises the bar again.
Conclusion
Victoria arrived late, but it did not arrive soft. Every Australian jurisdiction now treats psychological harm as a workplace safety issue, and the differences between them are about method rather than intent. Victoria limits how far you can lean on training, Queensland requires you to put prevention in writing, and NSW is narrowing compensation in a way that puts more weight on getting prevention right.
For community sector organisations, the work driving psychosocial risk is the same in Geelong as it is in Logan or Parramatta. Vicarious trauma, client aggression, unmanageable caseloads and thin supervision do not respect state lines. The regulations simply give employers a legal reason to address what their workers have been carrying all along.
The organisations that will do well under this regime are the ones that stop treating psychosocial safety as a wellbeing add-on and start treating it as part of how work is designed and led.
Get in touch with Ultimate EAP
UltimateEAP works exclusively with the social sector. We understand the hazards your workers face because we have worked in the same roles. We can help you assess psychosocial risk across your teams, review your controls against the Victorian regulations and the WHS model, and put in place EAP, critical incident and supervision support that changes the work, not just the worker's response to it.
If you operate in Victoria, NSW, Queensland or across several states, get in touch with UltimateEAP to book a conversation about where your organisation stands.
Contact UsReferences
DWF. (2023, January 31). New code of practice in Queensland: Managing the risk of psychosocial hazards at work. https://dwfgroup.com/en-au/news-and-insights/insights/2023/1/new-code-of-practice-in-queensland
DWF. (2024, September 3). New QLD WHS regulations place additional obligations on employers to proactively manage sexual harassment. https://dwfgroup.com/en-au/news-and-insights/insights/2024/9/new-qld-whs-regulations-place-additional-obligations
Fleeton, D., & Aitken, M. (2025, October 8). Ready or not, here they come: The Victorian psychosocial regulations and compliance code explained. K&L Gates. https://www.klgates.com/Ready-or-Not-Here-They-Come-The-Victorian-Psychosocial-Regulations-and-Compliance-Code-Explained-10-8-2025
Jessup, N., Tanner, G., & Reilly, B. (2026, February 10). Australia: Significant reforms to the NSW compensation scheme passed. Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer. https://www.hsfkramer.com/notes/employment/2026-posts/australia-significant-reforms-to-the-nsw-compensation-scheme-passed
Milionis, N. (2023, August 31). Update: Current status of WHS regulations addressing psychosocial risks. Global Workplace Insider. https://www.globalworkplaceinsider.com/2023/08/update-current-status-of-whs-regulations-addressing-psychosocial-risks/
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