In 2023-24, there were 146,700 serious workers’ compensation claims across Australia — more than 400 every single day. Behind each number is a real person: a tradie who fell from scaffolding, a nurse with a back injury from a patient lift, a warehouse worker with a repetitive strain claim, or an office employee with a work-related mental health condition. And behind each claim is, very often, a risk that wasn’t properly identified, assessed, or controlled beforehand.
WHS risk management isn’t about paperwork. It’s about knowing what can hurt your people, taking practical steps to prevent it, and being able to demonstrate — to regulators, to insurers, and to your workers — that you’ve done exactly that. This guide explains what OHS and WHS risks look like across Australian industries, what your legal obligations are, how to conduct a WHS risk assessment, and why a structured risk register is the most effective tool for managing it all.
Key OHS and WHS Risks Australian Businesses Face
WHS risks vary by industry, but some categories show up consistently across Australian workplaces. Understanding the risk landscape for your sector is the starting point for any effective WHS risk management program.
Physical and Ergonomic Hazards
Body stressing — including musculoskeletal injuries from manual tasks, awkward postures, and repetitive movements — accounts for 34.5% of all serious workers’ compensation claims in Australia. It’s the single largest cause of serious workplace injury, yet it’s frequently underestimated as a “minor” risk in smaller workplaces.
Physical hazards also include working at heights, slips, trips and falls, contact with machinery, and exposure to extreme temperatures or noise. Construction, manufacturing, agriculture, and healthcare consistently record the highest rates of physical injury claims.
Psychosocial Hazards
Mental health conditions are the fastest-growing category of serious workers’ compensation claims in Australia — up 161% over the past decade. Psychosocial hazards include work-related stress, bullying and harassment, excessive workload, job insecurity, poor role clarity, and exposure to traumatic events.
Following Safe Work Australia’s revised guidance on psychosocial risks, all Australian employers now have a positive duty to identify and manage these hazards with the same rigour as physical risks. For many businesses, this is the newest and least understood area of WHS compliance — and the one most likely to generate significant compensation claims and regulatory scrutiny.
Chemical and Hazardous Substances
Exposure to hazardous chemicals, dusts, fumes, and biological agents is a significant WHS risk in industries ranging from construction and manufacturing to healthcare, agriculture, and cleaning services. Silica dust from engineered stone benchtops, asbestos in older building materials, and chemical exposure in commercial kitchens are all live issues for Australian regulators.
Electrical and Energy Hazards
Electrical hazards cause injuries and fatalities across many industry sectors, from unguarded machinery to improper isolation procedures. In any workplace involving electrical installations, plant and equipment, or energy sources, electrical safety must be specifically assessed and documented.
Environmental and Emergency Risks
WHS obligations extend beyond day-to-day operations to include emergency preparedness: fire, chemical spill, severe weather events, and workplace violence. Businesses with insufficient emergency plans — or plans that exist on paper but haven’t been tested — are exposed to both regulatory risk and real harm to workers.
Your Legal Obligations: The Work Health and Safety Act 2011
The Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (the Model WHS Act) provides the legislative framework for workplace health and safety across most of Australia. It has been adopted by the Commonwealth, ACT, NSW, NT, QLD, SA, TAS, and WA (with some state variations).
Under the WHS Act, the primary duty holder is the Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking (PCBU). This is a deliberately broad term that covers employers, sole traders, principal contractors, and businesses with management or control of a workplace. PCBUs must, so far as is reasonably practicable, ensure:
- The health and safety of workers they employ or engage
- The health and safety of other people at the workplace (visitors, contractors, members of the public)
- The workplace itself, the systems of work, and the plant and substances used in work are safe
“So far as is reasonably practicable” is the legal standard — it means you must do what is proportionate to the risk, taking into account the likelihood and severity of harm, what you know or ought to know about the risk, and the cost and availability of controls.
Workers also have duties: to take reasonable care of their own health and safety, not to adversely affect others, and to cooperate with the PCBU on reasonable WHS instructions.
Industrial manslaughter laws now apply in multiple Australian jurisdictions (including Queensland, the ACT, NSW, Victoria, NT, WA, and SA). These laws create criminal liability for PCBUs and officers where gross negligence or reckless conduct causes a worker’s death. Maximum penalties range from 25 years imprisonment to over $10 million in fines for corporations. This has fundamentally changed the stakes for organisations that fail to demonstrate genuine WHS risk management.
How to Conduct a WHS Risk Assessment
A WHS risk assessment is the structured process by which you identify hazards, evaluate the associated risks, and determine the control measures needed. The Safe Work Australia Model Code of Practice — How to Manage Work Health and Safety Risks — provides the authoritative guidance.
Step 1: Identify the Hazard
Walk through your workplace and processes systematically. Consult your workers — they are often the first to notice hazards that management can’t see from a desk. Review your incident and near-miss records, manufacturer safety data sheets (SDS), and inspection reports. Consider changes to the workplace: new equipment, new tasks, new workers, or seasonal variations.
The question to ask at every step: what could cause harm here?
Step 2: Assess the Risk
For each hazard, assess the likelihood of harm occurring and the severity of that harm if it did. Use a consistent rating scale — a 5×5 likelihood × consequence matrix is standard practice and aligns with the WHS risk assessment methodology endorsed by Safe Work Australia.
Consider who could be harmed (workers, contractors, visitors, members of the public), how often they’re exposed, what controls are already in place, and how severe the potential consequences are. A risk that could cause death or permanent disability should be rated differently to one that could cause minor injury, even if both seem equally likely.
Step 3: Control the Risk — Hierarchy of Controls
Once risks are assessed, you must apply the hierarchy of controls to determine the most effective way to eliminate or minimise them. The WHS Regulations make it mandatory for duty holders to work through this hierarchy:
- Elimination — Remove the hazard completely. This is always the most effective control. Can the task be redesigned to remove the hazard? Can the machinery be replaced with something safer?
- Substitution — Replace the hazard with something less dangerous (e.g. use a water-based cleaning product instead of a solvent-based one).
- Isolation — Separate the hazard from people using barriers, enclosures, or safe work zones.
- Engineering controls — Use physical changes to equipment or the workplace to reduce exposure (e.g. guarding on machinery, ventilation systems, noise enclosures).
- Administrative controls — Change how work is done through procedures, training, supervision, and job rotation. These do not remove the hazard — they reduce exposure to it.
- Personal protective equipment (PPE) — The last resort. PPE does nothing to control the hazard; it only reduces the consequences of exposure. It should be used to supplement higher-level controls, not replace them.
The higher up the hierarchy, the more effective the control. Too many workplaces rely on PPE and administrative controls (training, procedures) because they’re cheaper and easier to implement — when engineering or elimination would actually manage the risk.
Step 4: Review and Monitor
Risk assessments must be reviewed when: there is reason to believe a control measure is no longer effective; work changes; a new hazard is identified; or following an incident or near miss. Periodic review (at minimum annually) should also be built into your WHS program.
Why a Risk Register Is the Backbone of WHS Compliance
A WHS risk assessment, done once and filed away, doesn’t constitute an adequate risk management system. What regulators, insurers, and courts expect to see is evidence that risk management is an ongoing process — that hazards are identified, controlled, reviewed, and that someone is accountable.
An OHS risk register (or WHS risk register) provides that structure. It captures every identified WHS hazard, the risk rating, the controls in place, the treatment actions required, the responsible person, and the review date. It’s both a compliance document and an operational tool.
For Australian businesses, a WHS-specific risk register should include:
- The specific hazard and the task or area where it exists
- Who is exposed and how often
- The likelihood and consequence rating (pre-control)
- The controls currently in place
- The residual risk rating (post-control)
- The owner responsible for this risk
- Outstanding treatment actions with due dates
- The next scheduled review date
Done properly, this register becomes the single source of truth for your WHS program. It supports SafeWork inspections, workers’ compensation audits, and insurance reviews. More importantly, it helps you actually prevent injuries rather than just document them after the fact.
For a comprehensive overview of how a risk register works across your entire business, see our guide: What Is a Risk Register? The Complete Guide for Australian Businesses.
Frequently Asked Questions About OHS and WHS Risk Management
What is the difference between OHS and WHS?
OHS (Occupational Health and Safety) and WHS (Work Health and Safety) refer to the same core concept — managing workplace health and safety — but reflect different legislative eras. Victoria and Western Australia retain OHS terminology under their own legislation (OHS Act 2004 in Victoria, OSH Act 1984 in WA). Most other Australian jurisdictions use WHS under the harmonised Model WHS Act 2011. In practice, the obligations are very similar regardless of which term your state uses.
Does every Australian business need a WHS risk assessment?
Yes. All PCBUs have a duty under the WHS Act (or equivalent state legislation) to identify and manage workplace risks so far as is reasonably practicable. There is no size threshold — a sole trader with one contractor on site has WHS duties just as a large manufacturer does. The complexity of your risk assessment should be proportionate to your hazard profile, but no business is exempt from the obligation to identify and control WHS risks.
How often do WHS risk assessments need to be reviewed?
The WHS regulations require review when there is reason to believe a control is no longer effective, when work changes (new tasks, new equipment, new workers), after any incident or near miss, and when requested by a health and safety representative. Beyond these triggers, best practice is to review high and critical WHS risks at least quarterly, with a full annual register review.
What are psychosocial hazards and are they covered by WHS law?
Yes. Psychosocial hazards — including work-related stress, bullying, harassment, traumatic events, and excessive workload — are covered by WHS legislation in all Australian jurisdictions. Following Safe Work Australia’s updated guidance, PCBUs have the same duty to identify and manage psychosocial risks as physical ones. Many jurisdictions now have specific codes of practice on psychosocial hazards. Given that mental health claims are up 161% over 10 years and carry a median compensation cost of $67,400, this is no longer a peripheral WHS issue.
What are the penalties for breaching WHS obligations in Australia?
Penalties vary by jurisdiction and by category of breach. Under the Model WHS Act, Category 1 offences (gross negligence or reckless conduct exposing workers to serious risk of death or serious injury) can attract fines of up to $3.6 million for a body corporate, $720,000 for an officer or senior manager, and up to five years imprisonment for an individual. Industrial manslaughter offences carry even higher penalties — up to $16.5 million for corporations in some jurisdictions and 25 years imprisonment for individuals.
Ready to Manage WHS Risks with Confidence?
Workplace health and safety isn’t a compliance exercise — it’s a commitment to your people. But compliance matters too: the regulatory, financial, and reputational consequences of inadequate WHS risk management are severe and increasingly enforced.
Lahebo’s risk register module is built to support exactly this kind of ongoing, structured WHS risk management. Log WHS hazards, assign risk owners, track control measures and treatment actions, and connect your risk program directly to Lahebo’s live Australian legislation library — so when WHS law changes, your register reflects it.
For a step-by-step guide to building your register, see: How to Build a Business Risk Register: Step-by-Step Guide with Free Template.
Manage your WHS risks with Lahebo — book a demo or start your free trial today.
Related Articles in This Series
- WHS risk register — WHS Risk Register: Ensuring Workplace Safety Compliance in Australia