The Work Health and Safety (Managing Psychosocial Hazards at Work) Code of Practice 2024 was registered on the Federal Register of Legislation on 1 November 2024. Approved by the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations under section 274 of the WHS Act 2011 (Cth), this is the Commonwealth jurisdiction's own code of practice for managing psychosocial hazards at work.

The Code applies to organisations operating under the Comcare jurisdiction: federal government agencies, national corporations, and self-insured licensees. If your organisation sits within the Comcare framework, this Code now provides the practical guidance for how you identify and manage psychosocial hazards.

What the Code adds beyond the 2022 model

The Commonwealth Code builds on Safe Work Australia's model Code of Practice: Managing psychosocial hazards at work (July 2022), but introduces several additions specific to the Commonwealth jurisdiction.

Three psychosocial hazards are now explicitly named as common examples that do not appear in the model Code: fatigue, intrusive surveillance, and job insecurity.

Fatigue covers jobs with high cognitive demands, extended work hours, inadequate recovery between shifts, and environmental stressors such as noise, light, and climate. Intrusive surveillance addresses the use of excessive monitoring tools to track workers' activity, movements, keyboard use, and computer screens beyond what is reasonable. Job insecurity covers workers in precarious, casual, fixed-term, seasonal, freelance, and gig work arrangements who lack assurance that their employment will remain stable.

These additions reflect the evolving understanding of what creates psychological harm in contemporary workplaces, particularly across the Commonwealth's diverse workforce of public servants, contractors, and nationally regulated employees.

How the Code supports the amended regulations

The Code supports the amended WHS Regulations (55A to 55D) that came into effect on 1 April 2023. Those regulations prescribe how a Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking (PCBU) must identify and manage psychosocial hazards that create risks to workers' psychological and physical health and safety. Both the regulatory amendments and this Code implement key recommendations from the 2018 review of the model WHS laws.

Where the Regulations set the legal duty, the Code provides the operational detail. It promotes a systematic, data-driven approach to psychosocial risk management, built around structured hazard identification, worker consultation, and ongoing review. The Code is designed to integrate into existing WHS management systems rather than operate as a separate process. Organisations that already have physical safety systems in place can extend those frameworks to cover psychosocial hazards using the same risk management methodology.

Practical significance

A PCBU covered by the Comcare jurisdiction should follow the Code to achieve compliance with the amended Regulations, or demonstrate that their approach meets an equivalent or higher standard. This is the standard test for codes of practice under the WHS Act: the Code is not the only path to compliance, but it is the benchmark against which an alternative approach is measured.

For organisations that have been managing psychosocial hazards under the model Code, the Commonwealth version raises the bar. Fatigue, surveillance, and job insecurity now sit alongside hazards like bullying, workload, and poor support as named categories requiring structured identification, assessment, and control.

Disclaimer: This article provides general information on psychosocial compliance in Australian workplaces. It does not constitute legal advice. Organisations should consult qualified professionals for advice specific to their circumstances. Information cited is sourced from the Federal Register of Legislation, Comcare, and Safe Work Australia as of the date of publication.