Anja Pich is a commercial lawyer and the Managing Lawyer at Lawpath. She practises across all areas of commercial law and advises businesses of every size, from first-time founders to established companies, on their legal, regulatory and commercial needs.
OH&S/WHS is shorthand for the laws and practices that keep people safe at work in Australia. OH&S (also written OHS) stands for occupational health and safety, the older term. WHS stands for work health and safety, the name used in the model laws that every state and territory except Victoria now runs.
Here’s the honest bit. Most business owners only look this up when a client’s supplier form asks for their “OH&S/WHS policy” and they realise they don’t have one. If that’s you, relax. The rules are clearer than the acronyms suggest, and you can get the basics sorted this week.
- OH&S and WHS describe the same goal: keeping people safe at work. WHS is the newer legal term, introduced through the model WHS laws from 2012.
- WHS means work health and safety, not “workplace” health and safety. The duty follows the work you do, wherever it happens, including home offices, vans and client sites.
- Victoria is the only state still on OHS laws. Western Australia switched to WHS on 31 March 2022, so WA businesses relying on old OHS paperwork need to update it.
- The real change was who carries the duty. WHS laws put it on the PCBU (your business), protect contractors and volunteers as “workers”, and make directors personally responsible for due diligence.
- Small businesses aren’t exempt. If you have one casual, one contractor or customers on site, you have safety duties and should have a written WHS policy.
What does OH&S/WHS mean?
People write OH&S/WHS with a slash because they want to cover both names at once. Tenders, job ads and supplier onboarding forms do this constantly. It’s a safe way of saying “whatever your state calls workplace safety, show us you’ve got it handled.”
What does OH&S stand for?
OH&S stands for occupational health and safety. Every Australian state used OHS legislation before 2012, each with its own rules. Victoria still does, under the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 (Vic). Outside Victoria, OHS survives mostly as a habit: old templates, old job titles and old tender forms.
What does WHS stand for?
WHS stands for work health and safety. Plenty of websites (including an earlier version of this one) expand it as “workplace health and safety”. The Acts don’t. That one word matters.
“Work” was chosen deliberately so the law attaches to the work being done, not to a building. Your duties travel with your team to a client’s office, a delivery route or a kitchen table. Get the name right in your policy and you’re already ahead of half the templates floating around online.
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OHS vs WHS: is there actually a difference?
In everyday conversation, no. Both terms mean managing risks so nobody gets hurt or sick because of work. Legally, yes. The move from OHS to WHS changed three things that affect how you run your business.
Who owes the safety duty?
Old OHS laws put the main duty on the “employer”. WHS laws put it on the PCBU, a person conducting a business or undertaking. A sole trader is a PCBU. So is a company, a partnership or a franchisee.
Why it matters: you can owe WHS duties without employing anyone. A sole trader who brings in a subcontractor for a weekend job is a PCBU with a primary duty of care, “so far as is reasonably practicable. Plenty of owners assume no staff means no obligations. That assumption doesn’t survive the definition.
Who counts as a worker?
Under WHS laws, a “worker” includes employees, contractors and subcontractors, their employees, labour hire staff, apprentices, work experience students and volunteers. Your safety duty covers all of them. It also covers visitors and customers who could be affected by the work.
Victoria gets to a similar place by a different route. Its OHS Act extends an employer’s duty to independent contractors and their staff for matters the employer controls. Different wording, same practical result: you can’t contract out of safety.
What do directors have to do?
WHS laws gave “officers” (directors and senior decision-makers) their own personal duty to exercise due diligence in the workplace. That means knowing what safety risks the business carries, making sure there are resources to manage them, and checking the systems work.
For a two-director company, this lands on both directors personally. “My co-founder handles ops” isn’t a defence. A short safety item on your board or monthly meeting agenda, with notes, does more for you here than a thick manual nobody opens.
If you work across the Victorian border, this translation table saves a lot of confusion:
| Concept | OHS term (Victoria) | WHS term (everywhere else) |
|---|---|---|
| Main duty holder | Employer | PCBU (person conducting a business or undertaking) |
| People protected | Employees, plus independent contractors and their staff | Workers (employees, contractors, labour hire, volunteers and more) and others at the workplace |
| Leadership duty | Officers can be liable where the company breaches the Act | Officers must exercise due diligence |
| Standard of care | So far as is reasonably practicable | So far as is reasonably practicable |
| Regulator | WorkSafe Victoria | State or territory regulator (see table below) |
Which states use OHS and which use WHS?
Eight of Australia’s nine safety jurisdictions now run a version of the model WHS laws. Each still has its own Act, regulations and regulator, so check the rules where your work actually happens.
| Jurisdiction | Main Act | Term used | Regulator |
|---|---|---|---|
| New South Wales | Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (NSW) | WHS | SafeWork NSW |
| Victoria | Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 (Vic) | OHS | WorkSafe Victoria |
| Queensland | Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (Qld) | WHS | Workplace Health and Safety Queensland |
| Western Australia | Work Health and Safety Act 2020 (WA) | WHS (since 31 March 2022) | WorkSafe WA |
| South Australia | Work Health and Safety Act 2012 (SA) | WHS | SafeWork SA |
| Tasmania | Work Health and Safety Act 2012 (Tas) | WHS | WorkSafe Tasmania |
| Australian Capital Territory | Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (ACT) | WHS | WorkSafe ACT |
| Northern Territory | Work Health and Safety (National Uniform Legislation) Act 2011 (NT) | WHS | NT WorkSafe |
| Commonwealth | Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (Cth) | WHS | Comcare |
Watch the regulations, too. They change more often than the Acts. NSW remade its WHS Regulation, and the 2025 version started on 22 August 2025. Tasmania remade its regulations in December 2022. Victoria added separate psychological health regulations that took effect on 1 December 2025, sitting alongside its existing OHS Regulations.
One more thing. The Commonwealth Act mostly covers Commonwealth agencies and a small group of licensed self-insured employers. A private small business almost always falls under its state or territory law instead.
Why did Australia switch from OHS to WHS?
Before 2012, a business operating in three states had to follow three different safety laws. That was expensive and confusing. In July 2008, the Council of Australian Governments signed an intergovernmental agreement to harmonise safety laws using a single model.
Safe Work Australia drafted that model and still maintains it. (Our guide to the role of Safe Work Australia explains what it does and doesn’t do. Spoiler: it writes policy but doesn’t inspect your business.)
Adoption was staggered. NSW, Queensland, the ACT, the NT and the Commonwealth started on 1 January 2012. South Australia and Tasmania followed on 1 January 2013. Western Australia passed its own version in November 2020, which commenced on 31 March 2022. Victoria never adopted it.
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What does OH&S/WHS require your business to do?
Strip away the jargon and OH&S/WHS compliance comes down to six habits. None of them needs a consultant. All of them need to be written down somewhere, because a regulator will ask what you did, not what you meant to do.
1. Find the hazards
Walk through a normal day in your business and list what could hurt someone. Think lifting, ladders, driving, chemicals, hot surfaces, working alone and aggressive customers. Ask your team. They know where the near misses happen.
2. Control the risks in the right order
WHS regulations set a hierarchy of controls. Eliminate the hazard first. If you can’t, substitute it, isolate it or engineer it out. Rules, training and PPE come last.
Most small businesses jump straight to “we’ll tell people to be careful”. That’s an administrative control, near the bottom of the list. Swapping a ladder for a step platform beats a laminated warning sign every time.
3. Talk to your workers
Consultation is a legal duty, not a courtesy. You must consult workers on safety matters that affect them, so far as is reasonably practicable. For a team of five, a standing five-minute safety item in your weekly catch-up counts. Write down what was raised and what you did about it.
4. Train and supervise
Give every new starter an induction, including casuals and contractors. Keep a signed record. When something goes wrong, the first questions are “were they trained?” and “can you prove it?”
5. Report serious incidents
Deaths, serious injuries or illnesses, and dangerous incidents are “notifiable”. You must tell your regulator immediately and preserve the scene until an inspector releases it. Skipping this step is an offence on its own. In NSW, the penalty notice for failing to notify rose from $7,450 to $12,500 under the 2025 Regulation.
6. Manage psychosocial hazards
Every jurisdiction now has specific rules on psychosocial hazards, things like bullying, harassment, unreasonable workloads, poor support and customer aggression. Victoria was last, on 1 December 2025.
These are managed like any other hazard: identify, control, review. NSW goes a step further. Its 2025 Regulation requires psychosocial risks to follow the same hierarchy of controls as physical ones, which the model regulations don’t require. A bullying policy on its own won’t cover you. Workload, rostering and how complaints get handled all count.
What OH&S/WHS documents does a small business need?
You don’t need a 100-page manual. You need a small set of documents that match how your business actually runs, and you need to keep them current. This is the core kit we’d start with:
- A WHS Policy setting out who is responsible for what, how hazards get reported, and what happens after an incident.
- A risk register listing your main hazards, the controls in place and when you last reviewed them.
- Safe work procedures for anything high-risk or repeated daily, written as short steps.
- An incident and near-miss register, plus induction and training records.
- Employment agreements that require staff to follow safety directions and policies.
- Contractor agreements with a proper WHS clause covering site rules, inductions, insurance and incident reporting.
- An employee handbook that pulls your safety, conduct and bullying policies into one place staff will actually read.
Pick a review date for all of it. Once a year works for most businesses. So does any time you move premises, add new equipment or start a new type of work.
What happens if you get OH&S/WHS wrong?
Most breaches start small: an improvement notice from an inspector, an on-the-spot fine, or an order to stop a task until it’s fixed. Those are annoying but survivable.
At the serious end, every Australian state and territory has now legislated an industrial manslaughter offence for deaths caused by negligent safety failures. NSW carries the highest maximum penalties: a $20 million fine for a company and up to 25 years’ jail for an individual. The offence applies to PCBUs and their officers, which is why that director due diligence duty matters so much.
Penalties aside, an injury costs you a team member, time off the tools and higher workers’ compensation premiums. If you haven’t sorted cover yet, read up on workers’ compensation insurance. It sits alongside WHS, not inside it, and it’s compulsory once you employ staff.
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What we see in Lawpath consultations
Lawpath lawyers review and draft WHS documents for small businesses every month. A few patterns come up again and again.
Policies written for the wrong state. We regularly redraft WHS policies for Western Australian businesses that were still built around the old framework or copied from an interstate template. A policy citing the wrong Act tells an inspector you haven’t looked at it in years.
Contractor agreements with no safety clause. Allied health practices, cleaners, tradies and disability support providers often send us contractor agreements to review. More often than expected, WHS gets one line or nothing. Then the work changes (a contractor starts seeing clients in person, say) and nobody updates the risk allocation. Your duty to that contractor exists whether the contract mentions it or not.
Two entities, one policy. Business groups that split hiring and equipment across separate companies often run one shared safety policy. Each company is its own PCBU. Each needs its own policy, plus clear rules on how the two consult and coordinate where their duties overlap.
Out-of-date legislation in the fine print. When we review WHS, bullying and drug and alcohol policies together, a legislative currency check is a standard part of the job. Older policies still name repealed regulations. It’s a quick fix, and it’s one of the first things an auditor or tender assessor notices.
Common OH&S/WHS mistakes to avoid
“We’re too small for this.” Size changes how much paperwork is reasonable, not whether the duty exists. A one-person business with a subcontractor is a PCBU.
Treating contractors as someone else’s problem. Getting the difference between a contractor and an employee right matters for tax and super. For safety, both are your workers.
Writing the policy and filing it. A policy nobody has read is evidence against you. Walk new starters through it and get a signature.
Ignoring the office. Desk setups, working from home, lone work and workload pressure are all WHS issues. Low physical risk doesn’t mean low risk.
Frequently asked questions about OH&S/WHS
What is the difference between OHS and WHS?
OHS (occupational health and safety) is the older term, still used in Victorian law. WHS (work health and safety) is the term in the model laws used everywhere else. Both aim to prevent harm at work, but WHS laws put the main duty on the PCBU and widen who counts as a worker.
What does OH&S/WHS mean on a job ad or tender?
It means the employer or client wants evidence that you understand workplace safety duties. For a tender, attach your WHS policy, risk assessments and induction records. For a job application, give an example of hazards you identified, safety procedures you followed or training you completed.
Is WHS short for workplace health and safety?
No. WHS stands for work health and safety, which is the term used in every WHS Act. “Work” was chosen so duties follow the work wherever it happens, not just at a fixed workplace. Queensland’s regulator is called Workplace Health and Safety Queensland, which adds to the confusion.
Does Victoria use OHS or WHS?
Victoria uses OHS. Its main law is the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 (Vic), enforced by WorkSafe Victoria. Victoria is the only state that hasn’t adopted the model WHS laws.
Does Western Australia still use OHS?
No. Western Australia moved to the Work Health and Safety Act 2020 (WA) on 31 March 2022, replacing its old occupational safety and health law. WA businesses should update any policy or contract that still refers to the old Act.
What is a PCBU?
A PCBU is a person conducting a business or undertaking. It’s the main duty holder under WHS laws and covers sole traders, partnerships and companies. If you run a business, you’re almost certainly a PCBU, whether or not you have employees.
Do small businesses need a WHS policy?
The Acts don’t name a “WHS policy” as mandatory for every business, but you must be able to show how you manage risks, consult and train. A written policy is the simplest way to prove that. Clients and tender panels ask for one as standard.
Do WHS duties cover contractors?
Yes. Under WHS laws, contractors, subcontractors and their staff are all “workers” you owe a duty to. In Victoria, the employer’s duty extends to independent contractors for matters the employer controls. Put a WHS clause in every contractor agreement.
Who enforces OH&S/WHS laws?
Each state and territory has its own regulator, such as SafeWork NSW, WorkSafe Victoria and Workplace Health and Safety Queensland. Comcare covers the Commonwealth scheme. Safe Work Australia writes the model laws but doesn’t inspect or prosecute businesses.
What psychosocial hazards does WHS cover?
Psychosocial hazards are parts of work that can harm mental health, such as bullying, harassment, excessive workload, poor support, low role clarity and aggressive customers. Every jurisdiction now requires them to be identified and controlled like physical hazards. Victoria’s rules started on 1 December 2025.
Get your OH&S/WHS basics sorted
If you’ve read this far, you’re already doing more than most. You don’t need to fix everything today. Nobody expects a ten-person business to run like a mine site. They expect you to know your risks, write down what you’re doing about them and keep it current.
The best first step is a written policy that fits your state and your team. Lawpath’s WHS Policy template walks you through it in plain English, and our lawyers can tailor it if your business spans more than one state or entity. Need a lawyer to check it? That’s covered too. Start your WHS Policy today.
