The regulators have stopped treating psychological health as an HR programme. The control measures they’re looking for sit with the person who runs the team meeting.
In late 2025, the Australian Department of Defence was convicted and fined $188,000 in the NSW Local Court. The prosecution followed the death by suicide of a 34-year-old Royal Australian Air Force technician at RAAF Base Williamtown. Comcare’s investigation found the worker had been placed on four separate performance “work plans” inside a six-month period.
What makes the case instructive isn’t the penalty — $188,000 against a maximum of $500,000 for a Category 3 offence is not, in corporate terms, an enormous number. It’s the list of things the regulator said Defence could reasonably have done. Every item on it was a supervisor’s job: training frontline leaders to recognise that a performance management process is itself a psychosocial hazard; teaching them to spot when a worker under a work plan is at risk; and teaching them when to refer a worker for medical assessment, and when to suspend the performance process altogether.
None of that happened. Comcare found that at no point did the worker’s supervisors refer him for support, place him on leave, or take any other step to relieve the pressure he was clearly under. The court also made an adverse publicity order, with its terms to be settled — a mechanism that can require an offender to publicise the offence, its consequences and the penalty.
This is the first time a Commonwealth employer has been convicted of failing to manage psychosocial risks under federal WHS law. It will not be the last of its kind. And the pattern it establishes should concern anyone who manages people directly: the controls regulators are now asking for are frontline controls.
The numbers driving the enforcement
Safe Work Australia’s most recent Key Work Health and Safety Statistics report puts the scale of the problem in plain terms.
| Metric | Mental health conditions | All serious claims |
|---|---|---|
| Serious claims (2023–24p) | 17,600 | 146,700 |
| Share of all serious claims | 12% | — |
| Median time lost (2022–23) | 35.7 working weeks | 7.4 working weeks |
| Median compensation paid (2022–23) | $67,400 | $16,300 |
| Change over the decade | +161.1% | — |
Three things stand out.
The growth is unmatched. Mental health conditions recorded the largest ten-year increase of any injury or disease category in the national dataset — up 161.1%, including a 14.7% jump in a single year. Over the same period, the worker fatality rate fell. Physical safety has genuinely improved; psychological safety has gone the other way.
The severity profile is the real story. A psychological injury claim keeps someone away from work almost five times longer than the median serious claim, and costs more than four times as much. Return-to-work outcomes are also worse, and workers with these claims are more likely to report stigma from colleagues and employers on the way back in.
It’s now a premium problem, not just a compliance one. Long-duration claims — those running 13 weeks or more — make up roughly a fifth of claims but around three-quarters of total compensation payments. With a median duration of 35.7 weeks, psychological injuries sit squarely in that expensive tail.
What the hazards actually look like on the floor
The model Code of Practice lists more than a dozen psychosocial hazards. Managers tend to assume the list is about bullying and harassment. It isn’t, mostly.
One recent dataset is useful here: Sonder analysed 9,183 psychosocial hazards tagged across support cases between May 2025 and May 2026. Nearly two-thirds fell into just three categories — job demands (23%), poor workplace relationships or conflict (21%), and poor support (20%).
Those aren’t misconduct issues. They’re management issues. Workload allocation. Role clarity. Whether a supervisor is available and responsive. How a restructure was communicated. Whether a grievance was handled the way the policy says it should be.
The Code is also explicit that hazards compound. A worker may cope with high job demands indefinitely — until demands combine with low job control, thin support, and a looming restructure. Regulators are specifically looking for that cumulative pattern, because it points to a systemic flaw in how work is designed rather than a one-off personality clash.
Three cases that redraw the manager’s job description
1. No system at all is indefensible
Court Services Victoria pleaded guilty and was fined $379,157 over a toxic culture at the Coroners Court that contributed to serious psychological harm among staff. The prosecution succeeded on a simple basis: there was no evidence of any hazard identification or risk assessment process. Not an inadequate one — none.
That fine pre-dated Victoria’s dedicated psychological health regulations, which commenced on 1 December 2025. The bar has since risen.
2. One complaint is enough
In Secretary, New South Wales Department of Education v SafeWork NSW (No 2) [2026] NSWIRComm 1014, handed down on 2 March 2026, the Commission largely upheld improvement notices issued after a complaint from a single employee — a business manager placed under a misconduct investigation. She was stood aside for three months before receiving any particulars of the allegations, and the investigation ran for around ten months.
Two findings matter for frontline leaders. First, the Commission confirmed that a workplace investigation is itself a psychosocial hazard — its length, its design, the duties a worker is given in the meantime, and whether the employer sticks to its own policy all carry WHS consequences. Second, the fact that only one worker had complained did not narrow the employer’s duty. A notice can address a general class of risk the employer should reasonably have foreseen.
“Nobody else has raised it” is not a defence.
3. Your own policy can become the liability
In Elisha v Vision Australia Ltd [2024] HCA 50, decided on 11 December 2024, the High Court found an employer liable for psychiatric injury after it breached its own disciplinary procedure — which the employment contract had incorporated as a binding term. The trial judge in the Supreme Court of Victoria called the process “a sham and a disgrace” and awarded $1,442,404.50. The Court of Appeal set that aside; the High Court restored it, overturning a 115-year-old precedent that had blocked damages for psychiatric injury in contract claims.
That money sits well outside the workers’ compensation system, and it is uncapped.
If your employment contracts reference compliance with policies and procedures, those procedures may be contractually enforceable. Running a shortcut version of your own disciplinary process is now a two-front exposure: regulatory prosecution and civil claim.
The compliance floor, jurisdiction by jurisdiction
As of 1 December 2025, every Australian state and territory has enforceable psychosocial hazard obligations. The harmonised jurisdictions work through WHS Regulations 55A–55D plus an approved code; Victoria operates under its own Occupational Health and Safety (Psychological Health) Regulations 2025.
A few local points worth knowing:
- Queensland. Codes of practice are enforceable under Queensland WHS law, so the Managing the risk of psychosocial hazards at work Code of Practice 2022 is not optional guidance. Queensland also went further than the national model: since 1 March 2025, every PCBU must have a written prevention plan for sexual harassment and sex or gender-based harassment, reviewed at least every three years — or sooner if a report is made. An existing anti-discrimination policy does not satisfy this.
- New South Wales. Since 1 July 2026, section 26A of the WHS Act requires PCBUs to either comply with an approved code of practice or demonstrate an equivalent or higher standard. SafeWork NSW has appointed dedicated psychosocial inspectors and has been running proactive, unannounced visits; psychosocial matters now account for close to one in five workplace complaints.
- Victoria. The regulations explicitly limit reliance on information, instruction and training as a standalone control — you can’t train your way out of a work design problem.
Penalties track the standard WHS framework. In NSW, a Category 1 offence carries up to $3 million for an individual and $15 million for a body corporate; Category 2, $1.5 million and $3 million; Category 3, $500,000 and $2.5 million.
What “reasonably practicable” means at team level
Two clarifications that repeatedly trip managers up:
An EAP is not a control. It’s a support service that sits downstream of the hazard. If chronic understaffing and unrealistic deadlines are the hazard, the control is fixing staffing or deadlines — not offering counselling to the people breaking under them.
A survey is not a risk assessment. It covers step one of four. And for many organisations, even that step has just gone: the government’s free People at Work survey has been decommissioned. New surveys closed on 1 July 2026, and access to the platform ended on 2 October 2026. Organisations that didn’t export their reports before then have lost them. Losing the tool doesn’t reduce the obligation by a single line. In Queensland, WorkSafe now points employers to its own psychosocial risk assessment tool instead.
A frontline manager’s working checklist
- Treat these five as hazards, not annoyances: sustained workload spikes, unclear roles after a change, unresolved interpersonal conflict, performance management processes, and investigations.
- Log what you observe. Turnover, absence patterns, exit feedback mentioning workload, near-miss conflicts. Hazard identification is a documented process, not an instinct.
- Consult before you control. Ask the people doing the work what makes the role harmful, then record the answers and what you did with them.
- Reach for higher-order controls first. Change the work — rosters, deadlines, staffing, decision rights, escalation paths — before reaching for training or a wellbeing app.
- Follow your own procedure exactly. Timeframes, communication, what work the person does while a process runs. Deviating from your policy is now evidence, not discretion.
- Pause and escalate. Know the point at which a performance or disciplinary process should stop and a referral should happen. The Defence case turned on precisely this.
- Review on triggers. After any incident, any significant change to how work is done, or whenever a worker raises a concern.
The audit-trail test
Every case above turns on the same question. Not whether the organisation cared about mental health, and not whether the culture was good. Whether it could show a documented process: hazards identified, risks assessed, controls chosen with a stated rationale, workers consulted, controls reviewed.
“We have a good culture” doesn’t appear anywhere in a WHS audit trail. What appears there is what your managers wrote down.
This article is general information about work health and safety obligations and is not legal advice. Requirements differ by jurisdiction and change frequently — confirm the current position with your regulator or an employment lawyer.
If this piece raises difficult issues for you or someone on your team, Lifeline is available on 13 11 14, and Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636.
Sources
- Safe Work Australia, Key Work Health and Safety Statistics Australia 2025 — https://data.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/insights/key-whs-statistics-australia/latest-release
- Safe Work Australia, model Code of Practice: Managing psychosocial hazards at work — https://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/safety-topic/managing-health-and-safety/mental-health/psychosocial-hazards
- Comcare / Department of Defence prosecution — https://region.com.au/defence-handed-first-ever-commonwealth-employer-penalty-for-psychological-harm-death/931676/
- Court Services Victoria penalty — https://cgw.com.au/publications/380000-fine-for-harmful-work-culture-serves-as-reminder-to-protect-employee-mental-wellbeing/
- NSW Department of Education v SafeWork NSW (No 2) [2026] NSWIRComm 1014 — https://mccullough.com.au/2026/04/07/psychosocial-risks-in-workplace-investigations/
- Elisha v Vision Australia Ltd [2024] HCA 50, High Court judgment summary — https://www.hcourt.gov.au/sites/default/files/assets/publications/judgment-summaries/2024/hca-50-2024-12-11.pdf
- AICD, the psychosocial regulatory landscape (jurisdiction table) — https://www.aicd.com.au/regulatory-compliance/the-psychosocial-regulatory-landscape.html
- WorkSafe Queensland, Managing the risk of psychosocial hazards at work Code of Practice 2022 — https://www.worksafe.qld.gov.au/laws-and-compliance/codes-of-practice/managing-the-risk-of-psychosocial-hazards-at-work-code-of-practice-2022
- WorkSafe Queensland, sexual harassment prevention plans — https://www.worksafe.qld.gov.au/safety-and-prevention/mental-health/Psychosocial-hazards/sexual-harassment-and-sex-or-gender-based-harassment
- WorkSafe Queensland, People at Work decommissioning — https://www.worksafe.qld.gov.au/safety-and-prevention/mental-health/people-at-work
