Health and Safety Representatives: What Employers Should Know in Victoria
What HSRs can do, what they can’t, and why the employer-HSR relationship matters under Victoria’s OHS Act 2004.
Under the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 (Vic), employees have the right to elect Health and Safety Representatives (HSRs) to represent their interests on health and safety matters. HSRs are not optional extras or advisory figures. They hold specific legal powers, and interfering with those powers is a criminal offence under the Act.
Despite this, many employers are unclear on what HSRs can do, where the boundaries of their role sit, and how the relationship is supposed to work in practice. This blog sets out the legal framework and the practical reality.
How are HSRs established?
HSRs don't just appear. The process starts with establishing a Designated Work Group (DWG), a group of employees who share similar work conditions, hazards, or a particular workplace location. DWGs are established through negotiation between the employer and employees (or their union representatives). If the parties can't agree on the structure of DWGs, either side can ask WorkSafe to appoint an inspector to determine them.
Any member of a DWG can be nominated as an HSR candidate, and the DWG members elect their representative by majority vote. An HSR holds office for a term of up to three years and can be re-elected. A DWG can also elect a deputy HSR, who steps in when the HSR is unavailable.
Once elected, HSRs are entitled to training. Employers must allow HSRs to attend an approved five-day initial OHS training course, and a one-day refresher each year after that. This training is done during normal working hours and at the employer's expense including course fees, travel, and wages for the time spent. The HSR chooses the course, not the employer, though the employer can ask WorkSafe to review the choice if they believe it's unreasonable.
This training obligation is not discretionary. Refusing or delaying it is a contravention of the Act.
What powers do HSRs have?
HSRs are given real, enforceable powers under the OHS Act. They carry legal weight and employers who obstruct them face penalties.
Inspection
An HSR can inspect the workplace, or the part of it where their DWG works, at any time after giving reasonable notice to the employer. "Reasonable notice" is not defined in the Act, but it means enough time for the employer to make any necessary arrangements. This doesn’t mean the employer can delay or refuse the inspection.
If there has been an incident, an immediate risk, or a change to the workplace that could create a new hazard, the HSR can inspect immediately without notice.
Issue resolution
When an HSR identifies a health or safety issue, they raise it with the employer under the agreed issue resolution procedure. The employer must then attempt to resolve the issue through consultation. If the issue can't be resolved at the workplace level, either party can ask WorkSafe to appoint an inspector to assist.
This escalation path matters. It means unresolved issues don't just sit there, they have a mechanism for moving upward, and the HSR is the person who can trigger it.
Provisional improvement notices (PINs)
If the HSR reasonably believes that the employer is contravening the OHS Act or Regulations (or is likely to repeat a contravention), and consultation has not resolved the matter, the HSR can issue a Provisional Improvement Notice (PIN).
A PIN is a written direction requiring the employer to remedy the contravention within a specified timeframe. It must describe the contravention, cite the relevant provision, and set out what needs to be done. The employer can comply with the PIN or ask WorkSafe to review it within seven days. Until WorkSafe cancels or modifies it, the PIN stands and must be complied with.
PINs are commonly issued for things like unresolved guarding issues on machinery, failure to provide adequate PPE, or persistent non-compliance with safe work procedures. They are not a first resort as the Act requires that consultation be attempted first, but they give HSRs a tool with teeth when consultation fails.
Direction to cease work
This is the most significant power an HSR holds. If the HSR has a reasonable concern that continuing work would expose a member of their DWG to an immediate threat to health or safety, and the threat is serious enough that it would be inappropriate to wait for an inspector or the normal resolution process, the HSR can direct the affected workers to cease work.
Workers who cease work under this direction must be available to carry out suitable alternative work, and the employer must pay them for the period. The employer can ask WorkSafe to review the direction, but the workers are not required to resume the unsafe work until the matter is resolved.
Cease work directions are rare in practice, and rightly so, they're designed for genuine emergencies, not routine disagreements. But the power exists precisely because some situations can't wait for a committee meeting or an inspector's visit.
Access to information
The employer must allow the HSR to access information about hazards at the workplace (including safety data sheets for hazardous chemicals), and about the health and safety of members of their DWG. This includes incident reports, risk assessments, and monitoring data.
There are limits. The HSR cannot access individual health information without the worker's consent. And the right to information relates to health and safety matters, it does not give the HSR a general right to inspect the employer's books or operational records.
Accompanying inspectors
When a WorkSafe inspector attends the workplace, the HSR has a right to accompany them during the inspection of any area where members of their DWG work. This is not a courtesy, the inspector must allow it, and the employer must release the HSR from their normal duties to do so.
This right exists because the HSR often has practical knowledge of the workplace that the inspector does not. They can point out what has changed since the last visit, what the real work practices look like (as opposed to the documented ones), and where the known problems are.
What HSRs cannot do
Understanding the limits of the HSR role is just as important as understanding the powers. Misunderstanding on either side, such an HSR who oversteps, or an employer who assumes the HSR has taken on safety responsibilities, creates problems.
HSRs are not safety managers. They do not take on the employer's duty to provide a safe workplace. Their role is representational: they represent workers' interests in health and safety matters, in much the same way a union delegate represents workers' interests in employment matters.
Specifically, HSRs cannot:
● Direct the employer to spend a specific amount of money on safety measures. They can raise concerns and issue PINs about contraventions, but the choice of how to control a risk (and what to spend doing it) remains the employer's, subject to the hierarchy of controls and the duty to eliminate or reduce risk so far as is reasonably practicable.
● Determine the specific control measures the employer must adopt. If a machine needs guarding, the HSR can insist on compliance, but the employer decides the type of guard, provided it actually works.
● Discipline workers for unsafe behaviour. That is a management function. The HSR can raise concerns about unsafe conduct with management, but they have no authority to issue warnings, stand workers down, or impose consequences.
● Override management decisions outside the specific legal mechanisms available to them. An HSR who disagrees with a management decision on a safety matter can raise it through issue resolution, escalate to WorkSafe, or issue a PIN, but they cannot simply veto the decision.
This distinction matters because some employers, consciously or not, start treating the HSR as the person responsible for safety on the floor. That is a misallocation of the employer's own duty, and it puts the HSR in an impossible position of accountable without authority.
Protections for HSRs
The OHS Act contains specific protections for HSRs against adverse action. Section 76 makes it an offence to:
● Dismiss, injure, alter the position of, or discriminate against an HSR because they have exercised, or propose to exercise, a power or function under the Act
● Penalise or threaten an HSR for raising a health and safety concern or performing their role
These protections extend to prospective HSRs (people who have been nominated but not yet elected) and former HSRs (people who have completed their term). The point is to prevent both retaliation and deterrence, punishing someone for acting as an HSR, and making an example of them to discourage others.
In practice, adverse action against HSRs is rarely as obvious as a sacking. More common patterns include: excluding the HSR from safety-related meetings they previously attended; restructuring their role so they no longer work in the DWG they represent; reducing their hours or changing their roster in ways that make it difficult to perform HSR functions; or simply refusing to engage with them when they raise issues.
All of these can amount to contraventions of the Act. The test is whether the adverse action was taken because of the person's role or conduct as an HSR. If the timing or circumstances suggest a connection, the burden shifts to the employer to show the action was taken for a legitimate, unrelated reason.
Why working with HSRs matters
The legal framework is clear enough. But the practical question most employers face is not whether they have to work with HSRs, but how to make the relationship productive rather than adversarial.
An HSR who is engaged, informed, and genuinely consulted is an asset. They have direct access to information about how work actually gets done, as opposed to how the procedures say it should be done. They hear complaints and concerns from workers that may never reach management through normal reporting lines. They can identify hazards that a manager doing a monthly walkthrough would miss, because they work alongside those hazards every day.
They also provide a structured, legally recognised channel for raising issues before those issues become incidents. A concern raised by an HSR and resolved through consultation is vastly preferable to a WorkSafe notice issued after someone gets hurt.
An HSR who is marginalised, ignored, or obstructed is a different proposition. Not because the HSR will cause problems, but because the problems that already exist will go unaddressed. Issues that could have been resolved informally escalate into PINs. PINs that could have been avoided lead to WorkSafe involvement. This deteriorates an organisations safety as the feedback loop that was supposed to catch problems early has been broken.
The practical steps are straightforward:
● Include the HSR in risk assessments, incident investigations, and safety planning as a genuine participant.
● Respond to issues they raise within a reasonable timeframe, even if the answer is "we've considered it and here's why we're taking a different approach."
● Provide the training they're entitled to promptly, and don't treat it as an inconvenience.
● Keep them informed about changes to the workplace, new hazards, and the outcomes of safety-related decisions.
● Treat their role as legitimate. An HSR raising a concern is the system working as intended.
None of this requires the employer to agree with every concern the HSR raises, or to implement every suggestion. It requires genuine engagement, listening, responding, and explaining. That is what consultation means under the Act, and it is what makes the relationship work.
Clear Boundaries provides workplace health and safety advice to Victorian employers. If you need help understanding your obligations around HSRs, consultation, or OHS compliance, get in touch.