Links to Australian Safety Codes of Practice: What are they and who should use them?

Codes of Practice are, in my experience, one of the most useful, and most overlooked, tools in Australian work health and safety. This page sets out what they are, how they are made and adopted, how they sit alongside the WHS Act and Regulations, and why they make such a sound foundation for any company’s safety system. Below you will also find direct links to the official Codes of Practice published by Safe Work Australia and each state and territory regulator.

In audit after audit I see businesses reach for a generic template when the relevant code was sitting there the whole time, already written by the regulator. Start with the code and you save yourself a great deal of second-guessing.

What is a Code of Practice?

A Code of Practice is a practical, approved guide to achieving the standards of health and safety required under the WHS Act and the WHS Regulations. Where the law sets a duty in broad terms (for example, “manage risks so far as is reasonably practicable”), a Code of Practice spells out the practical steps, controls and risk-assessment methods you can use to actually meet it. Codes are approved under section 274 of the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (and the equivalent provision in each jurisdiction’s Act).

Who develops them, and how the states adopt them

Safe Work Australia develops the model WHS laws (the model WHS Act, the model WHS Regulations and the model Codes of Practice) in consultation with the Commonwealth, the states and territories, unions and industry. Importantly, Safe Work Australia is a national policy body, not a regulator, and the model laws have no legal force on their own.

To take effect, each model Code is approved by WHS ministers and then adopted by each state or territory as its own Code of Practice, sometimes with local adaptations. How much local adaptation there can be is easy to underestimate. On psychosocial hazards, for instance, NSW published its own code fourteen months before a model code existed, Western Australia adapted NSW’s version rather than the model, and only the Northern Territory adopted the model cleanly, which is set out in our guide to psychosocial hazards and what Australian law requires. Once adopted, it has legal effect in that jurisdiction, and the local regulator administers and enforces it. New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, the ACT, the Northern Territory and the Commonwealth all operate under the model WHS laws. Western Australia joined them through its Work Health and Safety Act 2020, which commenced on 31 March 2022.

Victoria is the exception. It has not adopted the model WHS laws and instead operates under its own Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004, using “Compliance Codes” rather than model Codes of Practice. If you operate in Victoria, work from WorkSafe Victoria’s compliance codes rather than the model codes.

How Codes of Practice support the WHS Act and Regulations

Codes sit beneath the Act and Regulations and make them workable:

• They translate duties into practical action. A code is an approved, practical guide to achieving the standards the WHS Act and Regulations require.
• They are admissible in court. Courts and inspectors can use an approved code as evidence of what is known about a hazard, risk or control, and to help determine what is “reasonably practicable” in the circumstances.
• They set the benchmark you will be measured against. Because regulators and courts refer to codes, following them is strong evidence that you have met your legal duty.
• They are a floor, not a ceiling. You can follow a code, or use another method, provided it achieves an equivalent or higher standard of work health and safety.

The tell I look for on an audit is not a shelf of codes but whether the risk assessments actually reference them. Where a control can be traced back to the relevant code, the “reasonably practicable” argument makes itself; where it can’t, you are relying on someone’s memory, and memories do not hold up well in front of an inspector.

Worth noting for NSW: from 1 July 2026, New South Wales is strengthening the status of codes, making it a duty to comply with a relevant code of practice, or alternatively to manage the risk in a way that provides an equivalent or higher standard. Check SafeWork NSW for the detail.

Why Codes of Practice are a great basis for your safety system

For most businesses, the Codes of Practice are the ideal starting point for building a safety management system:

• They are authoritative and ready-made. Rather than interpreting the law from scratch, you can build your procedures directly on the regulator’s own guidance.
• They align you with the legal test. Basing your system on codes ties it directly to the “reasonably practicable” standard you will actually be judged against, reducing legal and enforcement risk.
• They are nationally consistent. With WA now aligned and only Victoria materially different, businesses operating across states can run largely one system.
• They stay current. Regulators regularly review and reissue codes (for example on psychosocial hazards, silica and workplace harassment), so a code-based system keeps pace with changing expectations.
• They map neatly to ISO 45001. The risk-based approach in the codes dovetails with an ISO 45001 occupational health and safety management system, making certification a natural next step.

Codes of Practice: official links by jurisdiction

Always use the code that applies where you operate. Start with Safe Work Australia for the model codes, then check your local regulator for the version it has adopted and enforces.

• Safe Work Australia: model Codes of Practice (national)
• SafeWork NSW: New South Wales
• Workplace Health and Safety Queensland: Queensland
• SafeWork SA: South Australia
• WorkSafe Tasmania: Tasmania
• WorkSafe ACT: Australian Capital Territory
• NT WorkSafe: Northern Territory
• WorkSafe WA: Western Australia
• WorkSafe Victoria: Victoria (Compliance Codes under the OHS Act)
• Comcare: Commonwealth jurisdiction

Looking for the psychosocial code specifically? That one is worth its own page, because the duty commenced on a different date in every jurisdiction and the codes are less uniform than most. We keep a jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction table of every psychosocial code of practice, with the commencement date of the underlying duty alongside it, in our guide to psychosocial hazards at work.

The register

Knowing which codes exist is the easy half. The half that gets audited is whether you can show which ones apply to you, how you meet each one, who owns it and when you last checked.

We have put that into a register you can work through with whoever owns safety in your business. One sheet per jurisdiction, six sample codes on each, with the code named and the requirement summarised, and columns for how you address it, who is responsible, when it was last reviewed and when it is next due.

Download the Codes of Practice compliance register (XLSX)

Two things it deliberately is not. It is not exhaustive: six codes per jurisdiction is a starting sample and there are many more that may apply to you. And the Victorian sheet is deliberately blank, because Victoria uses Compliance Codes under its own Occupational Health and Safety Act rather than the model codes, and we would rather you filled it from the WorkSafe Victoria list than trust a name we had guessed at.

There is also a national sheet for heavy vehicle obligations under the Heavy Vehicle National Law, covering chain of responsibility, the executive due diligence duty and the Master Code that was replaced in January 2026. If your register still cites the 2018 version, that one is worth a look. Note the HVNL does not apply in Western Australia or the Northern Territory.

It is built against ISO 45001 clause 9.1.2, evaluation of compliance, which is the clause that asks you to check rather than simply list.

Need help turning the codes into a working safety system?

Codes of Practice tell you what good looks like; a management system makes it happen every day. Streamline helps Australian businesses build practical safety systems based on the codes and certify them to ISO 45001. Get in touch to talk it through.