Safe Work Australia has published amendments to the model Work Health and Safety (WHS) Act and Regulations, following approval by WHS ministers, which will significantly expand what transport and logistics businesses must report to regulators.
Under the amendments released in December 2025, incident notification duties have been extended to include:
> Dangerous incidents involving mobile plant and falls;
> Violent incidents, including sexual assault;
> Work-related suicide and attempted suicide; and
> Extended worker absences (15+ calendar days).
Additionally, the model WHS Regulations for high-risk work licences have been updated to remove encompassment provisions from mobile crane licences, and introduce a prerequisite dogging qualification for most crane licence classes. View the explanatory statement.
Other updates to the model WHS Regulations include:
> Clarifying personal protective equipment (PPE) requirements (regulation 44);
> Reducing the automatic refusal timeframe for high-risk licence applications from 120 to 60 days (regulation 89); and
> Streamlining compliance and enforcement for asbestos sample analysis (regulation 423 and 479).
Please note: changes to incident notification requirements do not apply unless adopted in your jurisdiction. Employers should check with their local WHS regulator before updating their notification systems or reporting practices.
To help employers understand their notification duties, Safe Work Australia has published a fact sheet and a downloadable handbook.
Check out the updated model WHS Act and explanatory memorandum, and visit the incident notification page for more information.