Psychosocial compliance in Western Australia
Harrison Kennedy
Western Australia is the only Australian jurisdiction that has been simultaneously transitioning between two regulatory frameworks. In 2020, WA replaced its Occupational Safety and Health Act 1984, which had governed workplace safety in the state for 36 years, with the Work Health and Safety Act 2020. Express psychosocial risk provisions commenced on 1 December 2022, giving WA employers approximately two years to adjust to the new WHS Act framework before psychosocial duties were added to it. In 2024, WorkSafe WA published a state-specific Code of Practice: Psychosocial Hazards in the Workplace, one of only two jurisdictions to produce its own psychosocial code rather than adopting the national model.
For WA employers, this has meant adapting to new statutory language, new duty structures, and new psychosocial-specific obligations within a relatively short period. The regulator sits within the Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety, a structural choice that reflects the weight of mining, resources, and construction in the WA economy, and the elevated psychosocial risk profile those sectors carry.
This page sets out the law that applies in Western Australia, what WorkSafe WA expects from organisations, how the 2024 Code of Practice frames the duty, and what the state's industrial profile means for psychosocial compliance in practice. The financial picture of failing to meet the duty is set out separately on the cost of psychosocial non-compliance, the cost of psychological injury claims, and the cost of officer liability.
From OSH Act to WHS Act: the regulatory transition in Western Australia
Psychosocial compliance in Western Australia is governed by the Work Health and Safety Act 2020 (WA), the Work Health and Safety (General) Regulations 2022 (WA), and the WA Code of Practice: Psychosocial Hazards in the Workplace published in 2024.
The shift from the OSH Act 1984 to the WHS Act 2020 was more than a renaming. The previous Act used "employer" as the primary duty-holder concept. The WHS Act 2020 introduced the broader "person conducting a business or undertaking" (PCBU) framework used in other model WHS jurisdictions, capturing contractors, franchisors, and related entities that the old OSH Act did not clearly reach. Penalty structures were also re-set to align with the national model, including the Category 1 / 2 / 3 tiering used elsewhere in Australia.
Express psychosocial risk provisions were incorporated into the WHS (General) Regulations 2022, commencing on 1 December 2022. The regulations require duty holders to identify reasonably foreseeable psychosocial hazards, eliminate risks where reasonably practicable, and otherwise minimise them using the hierarchy of controls. The duty structure mirrors the national model.
In 2024, WorkSafe WA went one step further and published the Code of Practice: Psychosocial Hazards in the Workplace. Codes of Practice are admissible in court as evidence of what is known about a hazard, risk, or control, and an inspector may reference the Code when issuing an improvement or prohibition notice. WA joins New South Wales as one of only two Australian jurisdictions to publish a state-specific psychosocial code rather than relying on the model code produced by Safe Work Australia.
The practical consequence for WA employers is that any compliance posture developed under the OSH Act needs re-anchoring to the WHS Act framework. Old policies referencing the 1984 Act, "employer" duties, or OSH terminology no longer align cleanly with the regulator's current expectations.
What WorkSafe WA expects from organisations
WorkSafe WA expects organisations to identify psychosocial hazards in their workplaces, assess the risks those hazards pose, implement control measures following the hierarchy of controls, and review whether those controls are working. This is the same four-step risk management cycle embedded across Australia's model WHS jurisdictions. The Psychosocial Compliance Internal Audit Checklist is a structured way to assess where the organisation currently sits against this process.
When a WorkSafe WA inspector attends a workplace, the questions are consistent with those asked by regulators in every other Australian jurisdiction:
What psychosocial hazards have you identified?
How did you assess the risks those hazards pose?
Can you show the records of your hazard identification and risk assessment?
What controls have you implemented, and how do they follow the hierarchy of controls?
Who is responsible for each control?
When were the controls last reviewed for effectiveness?
How do you know the controls are actually working?
The WA-specific reference point is the 2024 Code of Practice, which an inspector will expect organisations to be working against. The Code provides practical guidance on what hazard identification looks like, how risks should be assessed, and which control measures are reasonably practicable for a given hazard type. Organisations that can articulate their compliance posture directly against the Code's structure are in a considerably stronger position than those relying on generic safety documentation. Running this manually is itself a substantial operational cost.
The 2024 Code of Practice and the 17-hazard framework
WorkSafe WA's 2024 Code of Practice provides the practical framework organisations are expected to work against. It is structured around the same psychosocial hazard categories established in the model Code, with control guidance calibrated to the WA regulatory environment.
The Commonwealth Code of Practice: Managing Psychosocial Hazards at Work 2024 recognises 17 psychosocial hazard categories nationally. The original model Code (July 2022) listed 14 categories; the Commonwealth Code added three more in 2024: fatigue, job insecurity, and intrusive surveillance. Organisations operating across jurisdictions should be aware that the WA Code aligns with the broader national approach to hazard identification while providing WA-specific context for controls.
For WA employers, the important distinction is that a state-specific code carries the same evidential weight as the model code, but it is tailored to the industrial profile the regulator sees every day. The expectations expressed in the WA Code reflect the hazards and controls that WorkSafe WA considers most relevant in the WA context. Organisations citing the model code rather than the WA code in their documentation are not technically non-compliant, but they are signalling that they have not engaged with their own regulator's guidance.
Industrial context: mining, resources, and remote work
WorkSafe WA sits within the Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety. The structure reflects the WA economy. Mining, resources, and construction dominate the state's workforce, and each sector carries a distinctive psychosocial hazard profile.
Fatigue is elevated across shift-based and fly-in-fly-out (FIFO) workforces common in WA's resources sector. Long rosters, night shifts, and compressed work patterns increase the likelihood of cumulative fatigue, and the Code of Practice treats fatigue as a psychosocial hazard requiring systematic management.
Remote or isolated work is similarly elevated in WA. Workers at remote mine sites, on offshore platforms, and in agricultural and pastoral settings can face limited access to support, emergency response, and the protective effects of established workplace relationships. The hazard is recognised in the Code and requires specific controls.
Traumatic events are a factor in emergency services, healthcare, and some resources operations where workers may witness or experience serious incidents. The cumulative exposure pattern matters for compliance because organisations need to document how they are monitoring and supporting workers who face this risk repeatedly.
Organisations in WA's dominant industries should expect WorkSafe WA's hazard identification expectations to reflect these sector realities. Generic hazard frameworks that work in office-based environments may not adequately capture the risk profile of a FIFO mining operation or a remote pastoral business.
Penalties under the WA WHS framework
The WHS Act 2020 (WA) sets out three categories of offence for breaches of the primary duty of care, consistent with the national model framework adopted at the same time. Category 1 covers reckless exposure of a person to risk of death or serious injury, where the duty holder knew of the risk. Maximum penalties are indexed and substantial, with the most serious breaches attracting fines in the millions for body corporates and up to five years imprisonment for individuals.
The WHS Act 2020 also introduced industrial manslaughter provisions into the WA framework. The offence applies where a PCBU or officer's conduct causes the death of a worker, and the conduct constitutes a gross breach of the duty of care. Maximum penalties are set at the highest tier in the WA framework, with substantial fines and lengthy imprisonment terms available. Queensland's industrial manslaughter framework, in place since 2017, provides the template most jurisdictions including WA followed.
Officers, including directors and senior executives, carry a personal and non-delegable due diligence duty under section 27 of the Act. An officer cannot discharge that duty by delegating WHS to a manager. They must take reasonable steps to acquire and maintain knowledge of WHS matters, understand the organisation's operations and associated psychosocial hazards, and verify that the organisation has appropriate resources and processes to manage them. The full personal exposure picture for officers covers this in detail.
What this means for WA employers
The combination of a recent statutory framework, express psychosocial provisions since December 2022, a state-specific Code of Practice published in 2024, and industrial manslaughter on the statute books puts WA employers in a clear regulatory environment. What is required is documented, structured, and tailored to the WA industrial context.
Systematic psychosocial compliance in WA looks the same as it does in any other Australian jurisdiction. Hazards are identified through a documented process, not assumed to be absent. Risks are assessed with evidence, not sentiment. Controls are selected against the hierarchy of controls and mapped to the specific hazards they address. Evidence is generated, stored, and retrievable. Effectiveness is measured, and the whole loop runs continuously.
The alternative is reactive compliance: waiting until an incident, a complaint, or a WorkSafe WA inspection forces a response. In a jurisdiction with a recently modernised statutory framework, industrial manslaughter provisions in effect, and a state-specific Code that regulators will reference directly during inspections, reactive compliance is a harder position to defend than it was under the previous OSH Act era.
For a more detailed walkthrough of what systematic psychosocial compliance looks like in practice, see our definitive guide to psychosocial compliance in Australia. Organisations with operations in multiple jurisdictions should also review New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, and the Commonwealth (Comcare) framework, each of which operates under different enforcement postures and, in Victoria's case, a different statutory framework. The cost of psychosocial non-compliance covers the financial side: penalties, claims costs, and operational impact. For the specific process of identifying and assessing hazards in a way that meets the regulator's expectations, see our guide to conducting a psychosocial risk assessment.
Check your WA compliance readiness
Most WA employers have some of the pieces in place: a wellbeing program, an EAP, an annual engagement survey, a policy. Few have all the pieces, structured in the way a WorkSafe WA inspector expects to see them, particularly when the inspector is working against the 2024 Code of Practice and an organisation's documentation still references the pre-2020 OSH Act framework.
A 5-minute psychosocial compliance readiness survey will give you a sense of where your organisation stands against the current WA requirements, including the WHS Act 2020 framework and the 2024 Code of Practice. If you would prefer a conversation, Harrison runs 20-minute compliance gap walkthroughs: no pitch, just a structured look at current posture against what WorkSafe WA is now asking for.