Does the WHS Act Apply in Victoria? Why It Doesn't

If you've searched "WHS Act Victoria" and landed on a generic national safety template, checklist, or induction pack, there's a good chance it doesn't actually match Victorian law. That's the trap: most "WHS" content on the internet is written for the harmonised model laws that apply in NSW, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania, the Northern Territory, the ACT, and Commonwealth workplaces — not Victoria.

Victoria never adopted the model Work Health and Safety (WHS) Act. It runs its own, separate scheme: the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 (Vic) and the Occupational Health and Safety Regulations 2017. Safe Work Australia — the national body that coordinated the harmonisation project — confirms this directly: "Victoria is the only jurisdiction who has not implemented the model WHS laws."

For a manufacturer with a single Victorian site, this might sound academic. It isn't, once you start pulling safety documents from national suppliers, hiring a consultant who trained interstate, or opening a second site in another state. Getting the terminology wrong in a safety management system, contract, or incident report isn't just an awkward slip — it can mean the document references duties and duty holders that don't exist under Victorian law.

The short answer

No. The WHS Act does not apply in Victoria. Victorian workplaces, including manufacturing plants, are governed by:

• The Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 (Vic) — the primary duties legislation
• The Occupational Health and Safety Regulations 2017 — which set out the detailed requirements (plant, hazardous substances, manual handling, confined spaces, and so on)
• WorkSafe Victoria — the regulator that enforces both

WorkSafe Victoria's own guidance is unambiguous about which Act governs: "The Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 (OHS Act) is the main workplace health and safety law in Victoria."

When each set of laws applies

Jurisdiction	Governing law	Adopted model WHS laws?
Commonwealth, ACT, NSW, NT, Queensland	Work Health and Safety Act	Yes — from 1 January 2012
South Australia, Tasmania	Work Health and Safety Act	Yes — from 1 January 2013
Western Australia	Work Health and Safety Act	Yes — passed 10 November 2020, operational from 31 March 2022
Victoria	Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004	No — never adopted

If your manufacturing business has sites in Victoria and, say, NSW, you are genuinely operating under two different Acts with two different sets of definitions. A safety management system written once for "Australia-wide" use and left unreviewed for the Victorian site is a common source of confusion at audit and after an incident.

Same job, different words

The terminology gap is where most confusion starts. Victoria's OHS Act uses "employer" and "employee." The harmonised WHS Act uses "PCBU" (person conducting a business or undertaking) and "worker" — deliberately broader terms designed to capture contractors, labour hire, and other non-traditional arrangements under one duty holder.

Concept	Victoria (OHS Act 2004)	Harmonised states (WHS Act)
Primary duty holder	Employer	PCBU (person conducting a business or undertaking)
Worker	Employee	Worker
Core duty standard	"So far as is reasonably practicable"	"So far as is reasonably practicable"
Officer liability	Section 144: an officer of a body corporate can be liable if a contravention by the company is attributable to the officer failing to take reasonable care	Section 27: an officer has a standalone, proactive duty to exercise due diligence to ensure the PCBU complies — independent of whether a contravention has occurred
Regulator	WorkSafe Victoria	State/territory regulator (e.g. SafeWork NSW, WorkSafe Qld)

Where the substance is genuinely similar. The core standard — doing what is "reasonably practicable" to eliminate or reduce risk — appears in both schemes. WorkSafe Victoria's guidance states that employers "must, so far as is reasonably practicable, provide and maintain a working environment that is safe and without risks to health," the same underlying test Safe Work Australia describes for PCBUs. Victoria's OHS Act also imposes duties on a similar range of parties — employers, the self-employed, employees, designers, manufacturers, and suppliers — even without a single umbrella term like "PCBU."

Where the substance is genuinely different. Officer liability is not just a labelling difference. Under the model Act, an officer's due diligence duty is a positive, freestanding obligation to verify the business is meeting its obligations, regardless of whether anything has gone wrong. Under Victoria's OHS Act, section 144 is accessorial liability: it attaches only when a contravention by the corporation is attributable to the officer's own failure to take reasonable care. A due-diligence checklist written for WHS officer duties will not map cleanly onto a Victorian officer's actual exposure.

Why this trips up manufacturers specifically

A few patterns come up repeatedly in Victorian manufacturing businesses:

• Multi-state operators copy a safety management system or SWMS template built for a NSW or Queensland site and use it unchanged in Victoria, leaving "PCBU," "worker," and WHS-specific clause references inside a document meant to satisfy Victorian OHS obligations.
• Interstate-trained staff and consultants who did their WHS officer training in another state sometimes assume that terminology applies everywhere, and draft policies or contracts using PCBU/worker language with no direct legal basis in Victoria.
• Generic national content is frequently written for the harmonised states because that covers more jurisdictions, making "WHS" feel like the default Australian term when in Victoria it isn't the applicable one.
• Downloaded templates may cite WHS Regulations clause numbers that don't exist in Victoria's OHS Regulations 2017, or officer due diligence obligations that don't match section 144.

None of this means the underlying safety practices are wrong — eliminating hazards and maintaining safe plant matters everywhere. The risk is legal precision: a document that uses the wrong Act's terms is weaker evidence of compliance if WorkSafe Victoria or a court ever tests it.

What to check in your own documents

• Do your safety management system, inductions, and SWMS/JSEA templates say "employer" and "employee," not "PCBU" and "worker"?
• Do any documents cite "WHS Regulations" clause numbers instead of the Occupational Health and Safety Regulations 2017?
• If you operate interstate, does each site's documentation actually match the Act that applies at that site?
• Are officer briefings and due diligence checklists framed around Victoria's section 144 test, not the harmonised section 27 due diligence duty?

For related explainers on documenting safe work at the task level, see JSEA vs SWMS in Victoria and the hierarchy of controls explained.

FAQ

Does the WHS Act apply to manufacturing sites in Victoria? No. Victoria has not adopted the model Work Health and Safety Act. Victorian manufacturing sites are governed by the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 (Vic) and the Occupational Health and Safety Regulations 2017, enforced by WorkSafe Victoria.

Which other states and territories use the WHS Act instead of Victoria's system? The Commonwealth, ACT, NSW, NT, and Queensland adopted the model WHS laws from 1 January 2012. South Australia and Tasmania adopted them from 1 January 2013. Western Australia passed its WHS Act on 10 November 2020, with it becoming operational on 31 March 2022. Victoria has not adopted the model laws at all.

Is a Victorian "employer" the same as a "PCBU" under the WHS Act? Not exactly. Victoria's OHS Act imposes duties on "employers," self-employed persons, designers, manufacturers, and suppliers as separate duty holders. The harmonised WHS Act instead uses one broad term, "PCBU," to capture most of these roles. Don't assume a PCBU-drafted duty clause transfers word-for-word into a Victorian document.

Does Victoria have an equivalent to the WHS Act's officer due diligence duty? Not in the same form. The model WHS Act gives officers a standalone, proactive duty to exercise due diligence, regardless of whether anything has gone wrong. Victoria's OHS Act instead makes an officer of a body corporate liable under section 144 where a contravention by the company is attributable to that officer failing to take reasonable care — a related but legally distinct test.

We operate sites in both Victoria and NSW — can we use one safety management system for both? You can share the underlying safety practices, but the legal document should reflect the Act that actually applies at each site. A single national template that uses WHS Act terminology throughout is likely to misdescribe duty holders and duty structure at your Victorian site.

If you're not sure whether your current safety documentation actually matches the Act that applies in Victoria, book a site assessment with Ardmor — we'll check your safety management system, inductions, and officer processes against the OHS Act 2004 and OHS Regulations 2017, not a generic national template.

This article is general information for Victorian manufacturers, not legal advice. Last updated: 20 September 2026.