The Duty Holder. Australian workplace safety, on the record. The Duty Holder. Australian workplace safety, on the record.

About

Written for the person who holds the duty

"Duty holder" is the model WHS Act's own word for you: the PCBU, the officer, the worker, anyone who owes a duty under the law. This masthead is named for its reader, because the reader's question never changes: what do I actually have to do, by when, in which jurisdiction, under which instrument?

What The Duty Holder covers

  • The model laws and their movement: Safe Work Australia's model Act, Regulations and Codes of Practice, tracked from consultation to publication to each jurisdiction's adoption. Harmonisation is a nine-jurisdiction diff, and nobody publishes the diff plainly. We do.
  • The nine regulators as document sources: codes, guidance, safety alerts, compliance campaigns, each covered as what it changes for you.
  • Enforcement, within a hard rule: prosecution and enforceable undertaking outcomes are reported only as the regulator's own published account about an organisation. Never individuals, never court reporting.
  • The data: national fatality and workers' compensation statistics, treated properly, with reference years and methodology notes, including when a famous number turns out to be dead.

The register we aim for

Plain, professional, apolitical. The so-what leads: what changed, who it applies to, what to do, from when. No compliance scare-mongering, no outrage, no manufactured urgency; the reader is a professional and the writing respects that. Every factual claim is linked to the primary authority. Quiet weeks are honest weeks.

The domain

The Duty Holder publishes on australianworkplacesafety.com.au, a domain that has carried Australian workplace safety writing since 2020. The old descriptive name became our strapline; the masthead now belongs to the reader. The full story of the relaunch, including what happened to the 114 legacy articles, is on how this site works.

Contact

Everything comes through one desk: tips, corrections and advertising. Tips and corrections can be anonymous; advertising is a business conversation and needs your details. We read all of it.