News

Safe Work Australia has published amendments to the model Work Health and Safety (WHS) Act and Regulations, following approval by WHS ministers. These changes expand incident notification requirements, update licensing arrangements for crane operations, and align the regulations with current practice.

Important: Changes to the model WHS laws do not apply unless adopted in your jurisdiction. Check with your WHS regulator for details.

Incident notification amendments

Under the updated model WHS Act, notification duties have been extended to include:

• dangerous incidents involving mobile plant and falls
• violent incidents, including sexual assault
• work-related suicide and attempted suicide, and
• extended worker absences (15+ calendar days).

Please note: changes to incident notification requirements do not apply unless adopted in your jurisdiction. Employers should check with their local WHS regulator before updating their notification systems or reporting practices. 

To help employers understand their notification duties, we’ve published supporting resources, including a fact sheet and a downloadable handbook. The handbook provides practical guidance to help employers apply these duties.

Check out the updated model WHS Act and explanatory memorandum, and visit the incident notification page for more information.

Crane licensing amendments

Changes to the model WHS Regulations for high-risk work licences relating to crane operation include:

• removing the encompassment of non-slewing mobile cranes, vehicle loading cranes and reach stackers from the slewing mobile crane licence classes. This means operators will need to hold the specific licence for the type of crane they operate, rather than relying on broader slewing mobile crane licence categories.
• introducing a requirement to hold a dogging qualification as a prerequisite for most crane licence classes. This change is intended to ensure operators have the necessary skills to safely perform slinging and load-handling tasks.

View the explanatory statement.

Miscellaneous amendments

Additional updates to the model WHS Regulations include:

• clarifying personal protective equipment (PPE) requirements (regulation 44)
• reducing the automatic refusal timeframe for high-risk licence applications from 120 to 60 days (regulation 89), and
• streamlining compliance and enforcement for asbestos sample analysis (regulations 423 and 479).

View the explanatory statement.

The updated model WHS Regulations are available on the Safe Work Australia website.