Victoria’s Psychological Health Regulations 2025: What You Need to Know

The new standalone regulations that make psychosocial risk management an explicit legal obligation

Since 1 December 2025, Victorian employers have been subject to the Occupational Health and Safety (Psychological Health) Regulations 2025. These are not an amendment to the existing OHS Regulations 2017. Victoria chose to create a separate, standalone regulation specifically addressing psychosocial hazards. No other Australian state or territory has done it this way.

This post explains what the Regulations require, how they interact with the OHS Act, and what employers need to do.

Why separate regulations?

The OHS Act 2004 already required employers to provide a working environment that is safe and without risks to health. The definition of “health” has always included psychological health. So what changed?

The short answer: specificity. The general duty under section 21 told employers to manage psychosocial risks, but it didn’t spell out how. The Psychological Health Regulations create explicit obligations to identify, control, and review psychosocial hazards using a defined process. They turn what was an implied duty into a prescriptive one.

The Regulations followed several reviews, including the Boland Review of Model Work Health and Safety Laws and the Productivity Commission’s Inquiry into Mental Health, both of which recommended strengthening legal frameworks for managing workplace psychological health.

What are psychosocial hazards under the Regulations?

The Regulations and the accompanying Compliance Code: Psychological Health identify the following psychosocial hazards:

•           High job demands (workload, time pressure, emotional demands)

•           Low job demands (monotonous or meaningless work)

•           Low job control (limited autonomy, rigid processes)

•           Poor support (inadequate supervisory or peer support)

•           Low role clarity (ambiguous responsibilities, conflicting expectations)

•           Poor organisational change management

•           Low recognition and reward

•           Poor organisational justice (unfair decision-making)

•           Poor workplace relationships (conflict, exclusion)

•           Remote or isolated work

•           Poor environmental conditions

•           Bullying

•           Aggression or violence

•           Sexual harassment

•           Gendered violence

•           Exposure to traumatic events or content

A psychosocial hazard is any aspect of work or the work environment that has the potential to cause psychological harm. A single hazard rarely operates in isolation, they usually interact. High job demands combined with low job control and poor support, for example, creates a significantly greater risk than any of those hazards alone.

What the Regulations require: the three core duties

The Regulations impose three express obligations on employers (regulations 14, 15, and 16):

Regulation 14: Identify psychosocial hazards

Employers must identify psychosocial hazards in the working environment, so far as is reasonably practicable. This is a proactive obligation. You cannot wait for someone to get injured or lodge a complaint. You are expected to look for hazards using a range of sources: work design, staffing arrangements, incident and complaint records, survey data, absenteeism trends, turnover, workers’ compensation claims, and direct consultation with workers.

Regulation 15: Control the risks

Where a psychosocial hazard has been identified, the employer must control the associated risk. The Regulations set out a specific hierarchy for doing this:

First: eliminate the psychosocial hazard or risk, so far as is reasonably practicable.

If elimination is not reasonably practicable: reduce the risk by altering one or more of the following: - Management of work - Plant - Systems of work - Work design - The workplace environment

Information, instruction or training may be used alongside other controls, but must not be the predominant control measure. It can only be used as the sole control when none of the higher-order controls are reasonably practicable.

A combination of control measures will usually be required. The Regulations are clear: training alone is not an acceptable response to a psychosocial hazard.

Regulation 16: Review and revise control measures

Employers must review their control measures in specified circumstances:

•           When the employer becomes aware the control measures do not adequately control the risk

•           When a worker (or someone on their behalf) reports a psychological injury or a psychosocial hazard

•           After a notifiable incident involving psychosocial hazards

•           After receiving a request from an HSR

•           If, for any other reason, the control measures are not adequately controlling the risks

If the review identifies that the control measures are not adequate, the employer must revise them.

How the Regulations interact with the OHS Act

A failure to comply with the Regulations is not prosecuted under the Regulations themselves. Instead, a breach constitutes a contravention of the employer’s general duty under section 21 of the OHS Act. The penalties that apply are the OHS Act penalties, which are substantial.

The Compliance Code: Psychological Health sits alongside the Regulations. A compliance code is not law, but section 149 of the OHS Act provides that compliance with a code is evidence that the duty holder has complied with the relevant duty to the extent the code addresses it. In practice, courts treat compliance codes as the benchmark for what employers should reasonably know and do.

What should employers do now?

If you haven’t already, the Regulations require you to:

1.         Review the Compliance Code: Psychological Health (available on the WorkSafe Victoria website) and understand what it says about your industry and work arrangements

2.         Identify the psychosocial hazards present in your workplace using the sources listed above, including consultation with workers

3.         Assess the risks those hazards create

4.         Implement controls following the hierarchy: eliminate first, then reduce by altering work systems, then training as a supplementary measure

5.         Document what you’ve done and why, including the reasoning behind your choice of controls

6.         Establish a process for reviewing controls when circumstances change or incidents occur

7.         Ensure your managers and supervisors understand psychosocial hazards and their role in managing them

The Regulations do not require written prevention plans (unlike earlier drafts and some other jurisdictions like Queensland). But WorkSafe recommends them, and if you’re ever asked to demonstrate compliance, a documented plan will be far more persuasive than a verbal explanation.