SafeWork NSW recently released its Regulatory Statement for 2026-27, confirming the four areas that will drive its inspection and enforcement activity over the next 12 months.
The Statement sets out the work health and safety risks, industries and behaviours that will attract the regulator's attention this financial year. For any business operating in New South Wales, it is a clear indication of where inspector visits, audits and compliance action will be directed.
The priorities are largely consistent with the past two years. SafeWork NSW Commissioner, Janet Schorer, has indicated that this continuity is deliberate, and that businesses in the priority areas should be examining what is working well in their safety systems and what needs to improve.
"Since becoming a standalone regulator, we’ve not seen much of a change in our regulatory priorities between 2025/26 and 2026/27. This signals to me that, while we have work to do as a regulator, it’s also important for businesses in those key priority areas to think really seriously about their work health and safety in terms of what is working well and what needs to be improved."
- Janet Schorer
Enforceable Codes of Practice
Amendments to the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (NSW) came into effect on 1 July 2026, giving legal force to approved Codes of Practice. Until now, Codes have operated as guidance material that inspectors and courts could reference when assessing what was reasonably practicable. They are now directly enforceable.
If your safety management system does not align with a relevant approved Code, you will need to demonstrate that your approach provides an equivalent or higher standard of protection, and you will need documentation to support that position.
We suggest a documented gap analysis against each Code that applies to your operations, completed this quarter. Where your systems depart from a Code, businesses should record the rationale and the evidence that your alternative approach meets or exceeds the standard.
Psychosocial risk
Psychosocial risk remains a headline priority, and the supporting data explains why. SafeWork NSW received more than 2,200 requests for service and over 190 incident notifications relating to psychosocial hazards in the past 12 months.
The regulator's focus for 2026-27 falls in two areas.
Risk factors leading to harmful behaviours
This includes bullying and harassment, with attention on high-risk workplaces and occupations.
Preventing violence and aggression towards frontline and customer-facing workers
This has been flagged as a specific sub-priority. Organisations in health, education, retail, hospitality, community services and government should take particular note.
In our experience, the gap for most organisations is not intent but evidence. Policies, values statements and employee assistance programs are valuable, but they do not constitute a psychosocial risk management system, and they will not satisfy an inspector on their own.
A defensible system involves identifying hazards through consultation, surveys and incident data, assessing and prioritising those hazards, implementing controls at the source of the risk rather than relying on individual coping strategies, and reviewing controls as the organisation changes. It also requires leaders and managers who are trained to recognise psychosocial hazards and respond to reports early. Effective risk management requires capability and capacity, at all levels, across operational teams and support functions.
Falls from heights
Falls from heights remains the leading cause of traumatic injury in NSW workplaces, with over 600 incidents and five fatalities reported in the past 12 months. SafeWork NSW will maintain its focus on residential construction and will extend its attention across the construction supply chain, including officers, principal contractors and supervisors.
Businesses that engage contractors should note that their duties extend beyond induction. The regulator expects evidence of capability across the chain, which means verifying that contractors' safe work method statements reflect actual practice rather than sitting in a file.
Hazardous substances
The focus here is exposure to crystalline silica, particularly in tunnelling and infrastructure projects, and asbestos in construction. In the past 12 months, inspectors issued more than 145 silica-related notices and received over 45 reports of silicosis cases.
Businesses with workers engaged in high-risk crystalline silica processing work should confirm strict compliance with the notification requirements of the Silica Worker Register, which commenced on 1 October 2025. This is an area where the regulator is actively checking records, and gaps are straightforward for an inspector to identify.
Mobile plant, vehicles and fixed machinery
Preventing injury from mobile plant, vehicle rollover and access to moving parts of machinery remains a priority, with agriculture, construction and manufacturing named as focus industries. The regulator was notified of over 500 incidents and eight fatalities related to mobile plant in the past year. Traffic management, exclusion zones, guarding and operator competency should all be reviewed against current practice.
Across all four priorities, the Statement reinforces three expectations that apply to every duty holder.
The first is genuine consultation with workers about WHS risks and decisions that affect their health and safety. You must be able to show how that consultation happened. Effective consultation has a visible loop.
The second is ensuring WHS initiatives are appropriate for groups at higher risk of harm, including apprentices, young workers, migrant workers and culturally and linguistically diverse workers. Training and guidance for these groups should be short, practical and delivered in plain language, with comprehension confirmed rather than assumed. For HR teams, this touches recruitment, induction, supervision and training design.
The third is compliance with the now enforceable Codes of Practice. As covered above, this is the structural change of 2026-27. It converts the other two expectations from good practice into measurable standards, because the relevant Codes describe what adequate consultation and risk management look like in concrete terms.
The common thread is evidence. Each of these expectations is easy to claim and easy for an inspector to disprove, which is precisely why they feature in the Statement.
Key takeaways
Employers in construction, agriculture and manufacturing appear across multiple priority areas and should expect increased regulatory interest this financial year. For all other organisations, the psychosocial hazards Code represents the most immediate compliance exposure, particularly for those with frontline or customer-facing workforces.
The consistent theme of the Statement is documentation. Consultation records, risk registers, gap analyses and training records are the evidence base the regulator will test. Organisations that can produce them are well placed. Organisations that cannot should treat this Statement as the prompt to close the gap while it remains inexpensive to do so.
How Actevate can help
Actevate works with NSW employers to build practical psychosocial risk management systems that meet the enforceable Code of Practice. Our training gives leaders, HR teams and WHS professionals the capability to identify psychosocial hazards, consult effectively and respond to issues with confidence.
If the 2026-27 Statement has raised questions about where your organisation stands, contact us to discuss a psychosocial risk gap assessment or leadership training for your team.
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