Adapting to the New WHS Regulations in NSW: What Every Business Needs to Know
The Work Health and Safety Regulation 2025 has officially come into effect in New South Wales, marking one of the most significant updates to workplace safety laws in recent years. While the fundamental duties under the WHS Act 2011 remain unchanged, the new regulation reshapes how businesses are expected to manage risk, report hazards, and demonstrate compliance.
At SYSTEMITY, we view this as more than a compliance shift — it’s a recalibration of what modern safety leadership looks like. These changes reflect an evolving understanding of workplace risk: one that recognises mental wellbeing, emerging technologies, and stronger enforcement as integral parts of the safety landscape.
A Sharper Focus on Psychosocial Risks
Perhaps the most notable change is the explicit inclusion of psychosocial hazards under the traditional hierarchy of control. This means that risks such as bullying, excessive workload, and poor job design must now be managed with the same rigour as physical hazards. Employers must look beyond training and awareness campaigns, ensuring that the structure of work itself — its pace, demands, and culture — does not compromise mental health.
This change reinforces a growing regulatory expectation: that businesses treat psychosocial safety not as a separate initiative, but as a core part of their WHS system. For many, this will require revisiting risk assessments, consultation processes, and management responsibilities.
Stronger Oversight and Emerging Risk Areas
The new regulation also tightens requirements in high-risk activities and technologies. Businesses involved in cutting, grinding, or drilling materials containing crystalline silica will soon be required to register their workers and report exposure information to SafeWork NSW. This initiative, which commences in October 2025, aims to create a state-wide register to support health surveillance and long-term risk management.
In parallel, new provisions address the storage of lithium-ion batteries, updated demolition licensing and supervision standards, and refined obligations for training providers. Together, these measures modernise the regulatory framework to keep pace with evolving technologies and industry practices.
Codes of Practice and Accountability
A subtle yet significant reform lies in the treatment of Codes of Practice. Under the new regulatory approach, approved Codes will be treated as the default benchmark — meaning businesses must either comply with them or demonstrate an equivalent or higher standard of control. This elevates the importance of staying current with industry codes and ensuring that internal procedures align closely with recognised best practice.
It’s a move that signals the regulator’s intent to reduce ambiguity: doing “something similar” will no longer suffice unless it can be proven to achieve the same outcome.
An Independent Regulator with a Broader Mandate
The creation of an independent SafeWork NSW, operating separately from the Department of Customer Service since July 2025, is another major shift. With expanded inspectorate resources and a specialised team focused on psychosocial hazards, the regulator is poised to take a more proactive enforcement stance.
For businesses, this translates to heightened expectations around evidence-based compliance — thorough record-keeping, documented consultation, and verifiable implementation of controls. Inspections will increasingly focus not just on the existence of systems, but on whether they are embedded and effective.
What This Means for Businesses
The 2025 WHS Regulation is not merely an administrative update; it reflects a broader evolution in how workplace safety is defined. The emphasis is moving from compliance paperwork to organisational culture, from reactive controls to proactive design, and from isolated safety initiatives to integrated management systems.
Businesses that take the time now to review their systems — particularly around psychosocial risks, high-risk processes, and documentation practices — will be better positioned to adapt. Updating Safe Work Method Statements, revisiting consultation procedures, and conducting management reviews should be high on every safety leader’s agenda.
Turning Compliance into Opportunity
At SYSTEMITY, we see regulation not as a burden but as a framework for improvement. Each legislative update is an opportunity to simplify, strengthen, and modernise safety systems — to make them more human, more practical, and more effective.
As WHS expectations continue to evolve, the businesses that thrive will be those that treat compliance as the foundation of excellence, not the ceiling of effort.