Workplace safety

Officer due diligence under WHS law

Directors, owners and senior executives who make significant decisions are officers under WHS law. Section 27 of the model WHS Act requires each officer to exercise due diligence to ensure the business meets its safety duties, and section 27(5) lists six reasonable steps that due diligence includes. An officer can be prosecuted even if the business is not.

Updated 5 November 2026. General information, not legal advice.

Who counts as an officer?

Under the model WHS Act, an officer is an officer within the meaning of section 9 of the Corporations Act 2001, other than a partner in a partnership. In practice that means directors and people who make, or take part in making, decisions affecting the whole or a substantial part of the business.

Safe Work Australia’s officer duties guidance puts the test as role and influence: you may be an officer if you make big decisions about all or part of the business, or can significantly affect its financial standing. In a small business the owners or operators are usually the officers.

Job title doesn’t decide it. A WHS manager with a "safety officer" title is not an officer unless they also have that level of decision-making influence.
A business can have several officers, and section 27 places the duty on each of them personally.
The model Act excludes elected members of a local authority acting in that capacity. Officers of the Crown and public authorities are covered by separate definitions.
Volunteer officers can’t be prosecuted for failing the officer duty (model WHS Act s 34).

What does section 27 require?

If the business has a duty or obligation under the WHS Act, each officer must exercise due diligence to ensure the business complies with it (model WHS Act s 27(1)).

The officer’s duty sits alongside the business’s own primary duty of care in section 19; it does not replace it. Under section 27(4), an officer can be convicted whether or not the business itself has been convicted, so a well-documented, proactive approach protects officers as individuals.

What are the six due diligence steps, and what evidence shows each one?

Section 27(5) says due diligence includes taking reasonable steps to keep up-to-date WHS knowledge, understand the operations and their risks, ensure resources, ensure incident and hazard reporting processes, ensure compliance processes, and verify all of this is happening.

Model WHS Act s 27(5): the six steps and the kind of evidence that shows an officer took them
Step (s 27(5))	What it means	Evidence an officer can point to
(a) Knowledge	Acquire and keep up-to-date knowledge of WHS matters	Officer briefings or training records, regulator updates circulated to the board, notes of legal or WHS advice received
(b) Understanding the operations	Understand the nature of the operations and generally their hazards and risks	Site visits, a risk register reviewed at board level, briefings on the highest-risk activities
(c) Resources	Ensure the business has and uses appropriate resources and processes to eliminate or minimise risks	Approved WHS budgets, staffing and equipment decisions, records showing controls were actually funded and put in place
(d) Incident and hazard information	Ensure processes exist to receive and consider information about incidents, hazards and risks, and respond in a timely way	Incident and hazard reports reaching the board, action logs with owners and close-out dates
(e) Compliance processes	Ensure the business has, and implements, processes for complying with its WHS duties	Procedures for notifying incidents, consulting workers, complying with notices, training workers and supporting health and safety representatives
(f) Verification	Verify the provision and use of the resources and processes in (c) to (e)	Audits, independent reviews, follow-up of overdue actions, minutes showing the board tested what it was told

The list in section 27(5) is inclusive, not exhaustive. Paragraph (f) is the one most often missing: approving a policy is not enough if no one checks it is being followed. Our officer due diligence audit walks through each step.

The examples under s 27(5)(e) include reporting notifiable incidents. Make sure the business knows when and how to notify the regulator.

What penalties can officers face?

Officers face the officer-level maximum for Category 1, 2 and 3 offences, which differs by jurisdiction. In WA, for example, the maximum fine for an officer is $120,000 for Category 3, $350,000 for Category 2, and 5 years’ imprisonment plus $680,000 for Category 1.

Category 1: gross negligence or recklessness that exposes someone to a risk of death or serious injury or illness (model Act s 31). Imprisonment is available.
Category 2: failing a health and safety duty in a way that exposes someone to a risk of death or serious injury or illness (s 32).
Category 3: failing a health and safety duty (s 33).

Model jurisdictions index or set their own amounts, so check the figure for your state or territory. Safe Work Australia keeps a maximum penalties comparison table across jurisdictions, current as at 1 August 2026. You can also estimate exposure with our WHS penalty calculator.

Industrial manslaughter is a separate, heavier offence. In WA (s 30A of the Work Health and Safety Act 2020), an officer convicted of industrial manslaughter faces up to 20 years’ imprisonment and a fine of $5,000,000.

How is Victoria different?

Victoria has not adopted the model laws. Under section 144 of the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 (Vic), an officer commits an offence if the company breaches the Act and the breach is attributable to the officer failing to take reasonable care.

Victoria’s OHS Act has no positive officer duty like section 27. Instead, officer liability follows from a breach by the body corporate. The officer is liable to the maximum fine a natural person would face for the breach. In deciding guilt, a court must consider what the officer knew, their ability to influence decisions on the matter, and whether others also contributed (s 144(3)).

Section 145 applies a similar test to officers of partnerships and unincorporated associations.
Volunteer officers can’t be prosecuted under either section.
Officers who are not volunteers can also be charged with workplace manslaughter under section 39G(2), which carries up to 25 years’ imprisonment.

The six steps in the table above remain a sound way for Victorian officers to show they took reasonable care, even though the Victorian Act doesn’t list them.

How does Western Australia’s WHS Act treat officers?

WA’s Work Health and Safety Act 2020 is based on the model law. Section 27 imposes the same due diligence duty with the same six steps, and section 4A defines who is an officer.

The WA Act has been in operation since 31 March 2022. Its definition of officer uses the Corporations Act section 9 test, excluding partners, and also excludes local government members. WA’s offence categories and penalties are set out as fixed dollar amounts in the Act.

How can an officer show due diligence in practice?

Put WHS on the board agenda at every meeting, require regular reporting on incidents and the highest risks, approve and track resourcing, and test what you’re told through audits and site visits.

Record WHS training or briefings for every officer at least yearly.
Keep a short list of the business’s highest risks and the controls for each, and review it at board level.
Set reporting requirements: incident numbers and types, notifiable incidents, overdue corrective actions and the results of worker consultation.
Minute decisions about resources, including any requests that were declined and why.
Commission periodic independent checks and follow up the findings.

Questions

Is a safety manager an officer under WHS law?

Not by title alone. A person is an officer only if they make, or take part in making, decisions affecting the whole or a substantial part of the business, or can significantly affect its financial standing.

Can an officer be prosecuted if no one was hurt?

Yes. A Category 3 offence is simply failing a health and safety duty, and section 27(4) allows an officer to be convicted whether or not the business has been convicted.

Do the six due diligence steps apply in Victoria?

Not as a statutory list. Victorian officers are liable under section 144 of the OHS Act 2004 if a company’s breach is attributable to their failure to take reasonable care, but the six steps are still good evidence of reasonable care.

Are volunteer directors liable?

Volunteer officers can’t be prosecuted for failing the officer duty under the model WHS Act (s 34) or under Victoria’s sections 144 and 145.

Sources

Checked against these sources on 5 November 2026. Spotted something out of date? Tell us.