On 16 March 2022, The Workplace Safety Legislation and Matters Amendment Act 2022 (The Act) became law in Victoria. The Act makes several key amendments to OHS and workers’ compensation legislation that employers need to take into consideration. These changes aim to prevent and better the response to workplace safety incidents, improve outcomes for injured workers and their families, and increase Worksafe’s ability to enhance Victoria’s workers’ compensation scheme operations.

The key impacts The Act will likely have on employers relate to;



• the requirement to notify WorkSafe of serious incidents, and
• the power of inspectors to issue prohibition notices and issue directions.

Incident notification changes

The Act includes three changes to incident notifications requirements:

1. The incident notification threshold for incidents of the type listed under section 37(2) of the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 (OHS Act), where a person is not seriously injured, is changing.

Incidents exposing a person “in the immediate vicinity to an immediate risk”, has been amended to incidents exposing a person “to a serious risk to the person’s health or safety emanating from an immediate or imminent exposure to a hazard”. The key difference here is the inclusion of the word “imminent”.

WorkSafe considers ‘imminent exposure’ to mean a person was or would have been exposed to a serious risk to their health or safety when the incident occurred. For example, a person would have been exposed to the risk even though they may not have been in the vicinity when the incident occurred, because they were there prior to the incident or ordinarily would have been in the vicinity, or were nearby when the incident occurred.

2. The amendments allow regulations to prescribe certain illnesses to be incidents for the purposes of incident notification provisions. Prescribed illnesses could include large-scale, infectious diseases posing a serious health risk, like COVID-19, serious illnesses acquired in workplaces, such as silicosis, and potentially work-related transmissible diseases.

3. Incidents relating to the collapse, overturning, failure or malfunction of, or damage to, plant will become notifiable if that plant is prescribed under regulations. The current provision that prescribed plant can only be used if licenced or registered is now outdated because Victoria no longer has a plant licensing regime.

What this means for employers

Employers will be required to notify WorkSafe of any incidents falling under the revised categories and which are prescribed in the proposed regulations that are currently under development.

Prohibition notice changes

These amendments give WorkSafe inspectors the ability to issue prohibition notices and directions in circumstances where the risk to health or safety is not classified as “immediate”, however is imminent and still serious.

Previously, the immediacy requirements in the OHS Act limited WorkSafe’s ability to address risks that did not have “immediate” health and safety risks or consequences.

This change means that should a WorkSafe inspector reasonably believe an activity involves or will involve a serious risk to the health and safety of a person, whether immediate or imminent, they have enforcement powers to prohibit the activity and/or give written or verbal directions regarding the activity.

These directions have an instantaneous effect and are often used to immediately cease dangerous activity pending processing of a prohibition notice. In determining the appropriate enforcement response, inspectors will take into account the nature and circumstances of the situation, in line with WorkSafe’s Compliance and Enforcement Policy.

What this means for employers

Changes to the prohibition notice will mean employers need to consider the diligence of their preventative workplace health and safety measures. It is not only incidents deemed as “immediate” that can be prohibited, but those which have not yet occurred and may affect a person in the future.

Bayside Group’s provides a range of safety management services to assist you. Contact us today