What is the WHS legislation act in Australia?
WHS (Work Health and Safety) laws (developed by Safe Work Australia) are a set of laws that include the Model WHS Act, Regulations and Codes of Practice; each jurisdiction then implements its own version. They set out who has WHS duties (employer, business entity, etc.) and what those duties are. It’s important to note that Australia doesn’t have one single WHS Act that applies across every state and territory.
Australian businesses have, one way or another, had to rethink what a workplace looks like.
Wherever the work happens, WHS Australia obligations can follow.
For some, it’s a home office. For others, a hybrid setup, with people moving between the office, their homes and other locations. Then there are offshore teams, working thousands of kilometres away from Australian headquarters.
But what of the context of WHS remote work obligations? For isolated employees? Hybrid teams?
Here’s what Australian businesses need to know about working from home, psychosocial hazards, remote workers and the Right to Disconnect.
In This Blog:
- ➤What Are Your WHS Obligations for Remote Employees?
- ➤What is a PCBU and am I one?
- ➤How Do the Regulators Enforce WHS Laws?
- ➤What Is the NSW Rule Change in WHS?
- ➤Who Is Responsible for WHS in a WFH Setup?
- ➤What Is the Psychosocial Hazard Code of Practice in Australia?
- ➤How To Manage Psychosocial Risks in Remote or Isolated Teams?
- ➤What Controls Should Be in Place for Remote Staff?
- ➤Does Hiring Offshore Staff Get Around the Right to Disconnect?
- ➤How Remote Staff Keeps Your Distributed Team Compliant
- ➤FAQs
What Are Your WHS Obligations for Remote Employees?
Under the model Australia WHS laws, a workplace can be any place where work is carried out. An employee’s home, when they’re working there, included. Safe Work Australia says working from home can change the risks a worker faces and the way a PCBU needs to meet its WHS duties.
These duties apply while the employee is carrying out their work in their chosen workplace.
What is a PCBU and am I one?
key takeaway//Quick Answer
PCBU stands for Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking. It’s the term used in WHS law for a person or organisation carrying out a business or undertaking – a business owner, a business entity, etc.
Nothing in the WHS laws implies that employers are to control everything in someone’s WFH environment the way most are able to in a centralised office or location. You, as the employer, owner, or manager, must, however, take reasonably practicable steps to provide a safe system of work.
What’s reasonably practicable – what a safe home-work setup is – will depend on the work and work-related risks involved.
How Do the Regulators Enforce WHS Laws?
Here’s a statement/question often heard: explain the role of WHS regulators in Australia. Well, there isn’t one WHS regulator for the whole country; mainly because, as previously mentioned, there isn’t a single set of laws for the entire country.
Only a model.
Safe Work Australia develops the model WHS laws and Codes of Practice. Individual states and territories then implement their own laws and enforce them through their own regulators.
Regulators and regulation depend on where your business operates. They include:
- SafeWork NSW
- WorkSafe Victoria
- Workplace Health and Safety Queensland
- SafeWork SA
- WorkSafe WA
- WorkSafe Tasmania
- NT WorkSafe
- WorkSafe ACT
- Comcare (for Commonwealth employers)
Regulators can inspect and investigate workplaces, and take enforcement action. The circumstances dictate what they do, and can involve everything from providing notices of improvement to prosecution.
What Is the NSW Rule Change in WHS?
On 1 July 2026, NSW lifted things to a different tier.
An approved Code of Practice now sets the minimum performance standard a PCBU is to meet. A PCBU can use another way of managing the hazard or risk, so long as it provides an equivalent or higher standard of health and safety.
What this means in reality:
If an approved Code applies to your business or the work your employees are doing, it needs to be accounted for, notwithstanding the risks connected with working from home.
Victoria Joins the Party
Victoria introduced its Occupational Health and Safety (Psychological Health) Regulations 2025 on 1 December 2025.
The regulations created duties around identifying psychosocial hazards and controlling (and reviewing the controls) the associated risks. Victoria also has a Psychological Health Compliance Code to help duty holders meet their obligations.
Victoria continues to operate under its own OHS legislation rather than the model WHS laws used by the other jurisdictions.
Extra Read: Here’s another law business owners should incorporate into their teams to stay compliant – Same Job Same Pay Australia.
Who Is Responsible for WHS in a WFH Setup?
WHS for remote and hybrid teams? Yes is the simplistic answer, and there are responsibilities on both sides.
A PCBU (business entity, owner, etc.) has the primary duty to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety of workers while they’re “at work.” Again, “at work” means “doing work.” Not necessarily a centralised office or working location.
But workers have duties of their own, like taking reasonable care of their health and safety and following reasonable WHS instructions and procedures.
WHS Obligations for Employer vs Employee:
Remote work makes some of the above harder since you can’t see what’s happening at someone’s corner or desk. All the more reason why workers need a straightforward and clearly outlined way to raise concerns and ask for help. A straightforward channel for regular consultation.
Safe Work Australia requires PCBUs to regularly consult workers about health and safety issues that directly affect them.
What Is the Psychosocial Hazard Code of Practice in Australia?
A psychosocial hazard is something in the way work is designed and carried out that can cause psychological harm. Safe Work Australia’s model Code of Practice gives PCBUs guidance on identifying and managing these risks. An approved Code can have legal effect in the jurisdiction where it has been adopted.
What are the 14 Psychosocial Hazards?
- High job demands
- Poor support
- Low role clarity
- Low control over job/work responsibilities
- Poor organisational change management
- Violence/aggression
- Harassment
- Bullying
- Remote or isolated work
- Poor workplace fairness/justice
- Hazardous work environment
- Low recognition and reward (programs or approaches)
- Trauma (incidents, graphic, etc.)
- Work conflict/poor working relations
These hazards can overlap, too.
Run through the risks against your employees’ current remote setups. If you find one or more, unscramble them and find out what can be changed.
Is Remote Work a Psychosocial Hazard Under WHS Law?
Yes. Remote or isolated work is recognised as a psychosocial hazard.
Working away from colleagues immediately reduces access to support and makes it harder for someone to get help when they need it. Safe Work Australia also notes that remote or isolated work can interact with and aggravate other hazards. Thus, increasing risks.
Example: someone already dealing with a heavy workload may have less access to support when working remotely, which can add to the pressure.
How To Manage Psychosocial Risks in Remote or Isolated Teams?
Safe Work Australia sets out a familiar risk-management process:
Identify the hazards. Assess the risks. Put controls in place. Review those controls to see whether they’re working. Consultation with workers is part of the process, too.
Step 1: Identify the Hazards
An office gives you an array of windows into how people are doing. You might notice someone looking exhausted or withdrawing from the rest of the team. Your eyes are direct witnesses to the signals. You can even take note of how often the change has been happening and since when.
Glimpses that are harder to come by when everyone works from different places and in their own separate workplaces.
Regular one-on-ones create a natural, almost spontaneous space for remote to raise concerns about workload, support, isolation, or conflict. Surveys can help bring out issues someone may not feel comfortable speaking out about.
Broadly circulated workplace information can tell you something as well. Safe Work Australia recommends considering information such as overtime, leave, incidents and other available records when identifying and assessing risks.
Step 2: Get to the Root Cause
Once you’ve found a hazard, get to what’s causing it.
If it’s workload, the problem could be too much work for the people available. Perhaps the work is waiting for a hire and the role is yet to be filled. The vacancy results in that work being distributed or assigned to workers who already have their own full plates to unload.
Instead of focusing on what their responsibilities are, priorities are changed or disordered.
Step 3: Control the Hazard
Going back to workload as the sample problem, clarify unclear responsibilities. Make sure that workers can get help when they need it. That channels are open for them to reach out to key persons for support.
An Employee Assistance Program can give someone support. For excessive workload or responsibilities that aren’t aligned to their roles, it won’t be that helpful.
Controls should address the hazard itself.
Step 4: Keep an Eye on the Controls
Safe Work Australia says controls should be reviewed to check that they’re working as planned.
So if your team changes, working hours change. Operations that change immediately imply that someone, or some people, will be taking on substantially different responsibilities. The same is true with new tools; a new monitoring system can’t be left to its own devices. Take another look and evaluate how it’s doing.
Then, maintain a simple, easily accessible record of what you identified. Document what you did about it and when you reviewed it.
Extra Read: Understand the Philippine Labour Law Guide for Foreign Employers.
What Controls Should Be in Place for Remote Staff?
There isn’t one checklist that works for every remote role. Still, there are checks you can go over as part of your usual WHS processes.
Do You Need to Inspect an Employee’s Home Office?
You need a reasonable way to identify and manage risks in the home working environment, and this doesn’t necessarily mean going to your employee’s home yourself, or sending someone over.
Self-assessment is the term to remember. Your employees can themselves cover the workstation, chair, screen, lighting and other conditions that could affect health and safety.
Safe Work Australia also provides a working-from-home checklist for this purpose.
What Is the Right to Disconnect and Does It Apply to My Business?
The Right to Disconnect became part of the Fair Work Act on 26 August 2024 for employees of non-small business employers. Since 26 August 2025, it has also applied to employees of small business employers.
An employee can refuse to monitor, read or respond to work-related contact outside their working hours unless that refusal is unreasonable.
More on this in our upcoming article dedicated to the Right to Disconnect Law.
What Are Your Communication Obligations for Isolated Remote Workers?
Under the model WHS Regulations, PCBUs must manage the risks associated with remote or isolated work and have systems for effectively communicating with workers.
The method depends on the work.
For one team, that might mean scheduled check-ins. Another may need a buddy system, movement records, or a system for getting emergency assistance. Safe Work Australia identifies communication systems and buddy systems among the controls that can be used for remote or isolated work.
The important thing is that a worker knows how to raise a safety concern and who to contact when they need help.
Direct Channel
Have questions? Drop our team a line anytime.
Does Hiring Offshore Staff Get Around the Right to Disconnect?
Hiring someone overseas and calling them a “contractor” doesn’t automatically settle whether they’re legally a contractor under Australian employment law.
The Pascua v Doessel Group Pty Ltd [2024] FWC 2669 case is a useful example. A paralegal based in the Philippines was engaged by a Queensland law firm as an independent contractor. The Fair Work Commission found that she was an employee for unfair dismissal purposes.
Among the things the Commission considered were:
- how much control the firm had over her day-to-day work
- how closely she was integrated into the business, including an email signature identifying her as a paralegal
- the way she was engaged and paid
The Full Bench later refused permission to appeal. In a subsequent decision, the Commission found that Ms Pascua had been unfairly dismissed and awarded $10,800 in compensation.
The finding was for unfair dismissal purposes. Different legal tests can apply to other employment entitlements, so this case shouldn’t be read as saying every offshore contractor is automatically an Australian employee.
What Structure Actually Lets You Run Extended Hours Legally?
A business can use offshore staffing to provide coverage during Australian off-hours without asking Australian employees to remain available around the clock.
One structure is to have offshore professionals employed by a staffing provider in their own country. Under the employment laws that apply there, and with their own normal working hours and roster.
The legal position comes from the actual employment structure and relationships involved, not from putting the word “offshore” or “contractor” into an agreement.
How Remote Staff Keeps Your Distributed Team Compliant
Your remote workforce still needs a proper structure around it. For Australian businesses using offshore professionals, Remote Staff has spent 18 years helping companies build and manage distributed teams.
Depending on what you need, that can mean full-time, part-time, or project-based professionals, with onboarding, payroll, and HR handled centrally.
It gives Australian businesses another way to build coverage across working hours while keeping the employment arrangement clear.
FAQs
Do I need a WHS policy if my staff work from home?
You don’t need a specific “work from home WHS policy” simply because your staff work remotely. Your usual WHS duties still apply when employees work from home, so you need a way to identify and manage the risks involved. A written policy, checklist or procedure can help document how you’re doing that.
Is working from home a legal right in Australia?
Not generally. Certain employees have a legal right to request flexible working arrangements, which can include working from home. An employer can refuse a request on reasonable business grounds after following the required process.
How much can a business be fined for a WHS breach in Australia?
Under the model WHS laws, the maximum Category 1 penalty from 1 July 2026 is $12.321 million for a body corporate and $2.464 million for an individual PCBU or officer. Category 2 and 3 offences carry lower maximums. The actual penalties and offence categories vary between jurisdictions.
Do casual or contract remote workers count under WHS law?
Yes, and the model WHS laws define a worker broadly. The definition includes employees, contractors, subcontractors, self-employed people, outworkers, apprentices, labour hire workers and volunteers, among others. The type of engagement does not, by itself, remove WHS duties.
You Can’t See Their Home Office, But the Duty Still Follows the Work
Remote work changed where people work. That’s all. As a PCBU, you’re still responsible for thinking about their health and safety while they accomplish their tasks day after day.
Workload, communication, isolation, role clarity, and the way people are managed can all become part of the WHS canvas.
Once your team is spread across homes, cities, territories, or countries, having a clear structure around who works when, who supports them, and who handles what becomes even more important.
Building or expanding a remote team? Let us help you work out what that structure could look like. Request a Callback today.
Vaune Everis Cura has always been a writer in the truest sense, drawn to the art both as a personal creative pursuit and as a profession. Her experience penning content across digital marketing spaces and collaborating with business owners and market shapers has broadened her craft to include strategic direction and SEO insight. Having spent years with the InterContinental Hotels Group before stepping boldly into freelancing, she understands that at the centre of it all are genuine, meaningful brand–customer relationships built on purposeful, human content.
