The Occupational Health and Safety (Psychological Health) Regulations 2025 (Vic) commenced on 1 December 2025. Victoria is the last Australian jurisdiction to introduce specific psychosocial regulations, and the only state that operates outside the harmonised model WHS laws. The Regulations sit under the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 (Vic) and are accompanied by a Compliance Code: Psychological Health (Edition 1, September 2025).

There are no transitional provisions. The obligations apply in full from commencement.

What the Regulations require

Employers must, so far as is reasonably practicable, identify psychosocial hazards that may arise in the working environment and may cause an employee to experience one or more negative psychological responses that create a risk to the employee's health or safety.

The Regulations define a psychosocial hazard as any factor or factors in work design, systems of work, the management of work, the carrying out of the work, or personal or work-related interactions that may arise in the working environment and cause negative psychological responses. A psychological response is defined to include cognitive, emotional and behavioural responses and the physiological processes associated with them. This means the Regulations cover both psychological and physical harm arising from psychosocial hazards.

Examples of psychosocial hazards listed in the Regulations include bullying, aggression, sexual harassment, exposure to violence or trauma, excessive or low job demands, unclear roles, poor support, unfair change management, remote or isolated work, and difficult workplace relationships. The Compliance Code also specifically recognises gendered violence and vicarious trauma.

The Victorian control measure structure

Where elimination of a psychosocial risk is not reasonably practicable, employers must reduce the risk so far as is reasonably practicable. The Regulations prescribe a specific structure for how this must be done.

An employer must reduce the risk by altering the management of work, the plant, the systems of work, the work design, or the workplace environment. These are the primary control measures.

Information, instruction or training can only be used as the exclusive control measure if those alteration measures are not reasonably practicable. If used in combination with alteration measures, information, instruction or training cannot be the predominant measure.

This is the key Victorian distinction. As MinterEllison notes, the Regulations implement a modified hierarchy of controls that uses different terminology from the traditional hierarchy, but achieves the same effect: higher-order controls that change the source of the hazard must be applied before lower-order controls that rely on individual behaviour. WorkSafe Victoria has indicated that while this approach is similar to the traditional hierarchy, the tailored terminology is intended to be easier to apply to psychosocial hazards.

For organisations that have built their psychosocial risk management around training, policies and employee assistance programmes, this structure requires a reassessment. An employer relying predominantly on training to manage workload hazards, for example, would need to demonstrate that altering work design, systems of work or staffing was not reasonably practicable before training could be the predominant control.

Review triggers

Employers must review and, if necessary, revise any control measures implemented to control risks associated with psychosocial hazards. The Regulations specify the circumstances that trigger a review:

Before any alteration is made to anything, process or system of work that is likely to result in changes to the risks associated with psychosocial hazards. If new or additional information about a psychosocial hazard becomes available to the employer. If an employee, or a person on behalf of an employee, reports a psychological injury or a psychosocial hazard to the employer. After any notifiable incident occurs that involves one or more psychosocial hazards. If, for any other reason, the risk control measures do not adequately control the risks associated with a psychosocial hazard. After receiving a request from a health and safety representative.

These triggers are not discretionary. When any of these circumstances arise, the employer must review the relevant control measures. Clayton Utz recommends that employers implement clear policies and procedures for reviewing control measures that set out key responsibilities, notification processes when prescribed triggers occur, and record keeping to document all review and revision decisions, including decisions not to revise a control measure.

Consultation requirements

The Regulations reinforce existing consultation obligations under the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 and include specific requirements for consulting health and safety representatives (HSRs). Employers must provide HSRs with all the information about the matter that the employer provides, or intends to provide, to employees. This information must be provided to the HSR a reasonable time before giving it to the employees, unless that is not reasonably practicable. Employers must invite the HSR to meet and consult on matters, and give the HSR a reasonable opportunity to express their views, taking those views into account.

The obligation to consult extends to independent contractors and their employees for all matters the employer controls.

The Compliance Code

The Compliance Code: Psychological Health provides practical guidance on how to comply with the Regulations. A breach of the Compliance Code is not, in itself, a breach of the Act or the Regulations. However, an employer who complies with the Compliance Code will, to the extent it deals with their duties, be taken to have complied with those duties. WorkSafe Victoria will regard the contents of the Compliance Code as information about psychosocial hazards and ways of controlling them of which employers ought reasonably to know.

Prevention plans are encouraged but not mandatory. WorkSafe Victoria has published a prevention plan template on its website for employers to use.

What national employers should do

Norton Rose Fulbright recommends that national employers review their current risk assessments for the management of psychosocial risks and consider whether those risk assessments reflect Victoria's specific requirements. In particular, employers should consider whether their existing risk controls focus on reducing risk by altering the management of work, the plant, the systems of work, the work design or the workplace environment, rather than relying predominantly on training or information.

WorkSafe Victoria has acknowledged that businesses operating across state borders will already be complying with similar requirements in other jurisdictions, and that this will have improved the state of knowledge for many Victorian businesses. However, the Victorian Regulations use different definitions, different control measure structures, and different consultation requirements from the model WHS jurisdictions. Employers should not assume that compliance in other states automatically equals compliance in Victoria.

For the full state-by-state breakdown, see the compliance-by-state collection. For background on the model WHS Regulations that the other jurisdictions adopted, see the linked article.

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. Regulatory references are sourced from WorkSafe Victoria, Norton Rose Fulbright, MinterEllison, Clayton Utz, K&L Gates, and the Victorian Government and are current as of the date of publication.