Is Victoria Overhauling the OHS Act? What's Changing for Officer Duties

Is Victoria actually overhauling the OHS Act?

Short answer: partly, and it's already happened — but not in the way most owners assume. There is no standalone "OHS Act 2004 overhaul" bill sitting in Parliament. Instead, a new positive officer due diligence duty has been inserted into the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 as part of a much larger reform: Victoria's rewrite of its dangerous goods laws.

According to WorkSafe Victoria, the Occupational Health and Safety Amendment (Dangerous Goods) Act 2026 has passed Parliament and is planned to commence in April 2028. Until then, the old Dangerous Goods Act 1985 and its regulations continue to apply to every duty holder. This isn't a consultation paper or an announced intention — WorkSafe's own information sheet on the reform, published 31 July 2026 and reviewed 4 August 2026, states plainly that the legislation has passed and names April 2028 as the commencement date.

What the Act actually changes — confirmed, not speculated

The dangerous goods reform is mainly about storage, handling and transport: a new Dangerous Goods Transport Act 2026 for road, rail and inland waterway transport, and amendments folding dangerous goods duties into the OHS Act itself. But bundled into that same amending Act, WorkSafe lists five "broader" changes to the OHS Act that apply well beyond dangerous goods:

• A new aggravated offence for serious breaches of the general duty in section 21
• New civil penalty provisions
• New court orders
• A new duty for an officer of a body corporate to exercise due diligence
• Powers to redirect directions to entities

That fifth item is the one worth a plant owner's attention, because it is structurally different from anything currently in the OHS Act.

How this differs from the existing section 144 liability

If you've read our piece on director personal liability under section 144, you'll know Victoria's current regime catches officers through "knowingly concerned" liability — a prosecutor has to prove the officer actually knew about, and was involved in, the contravention. It's an accessorial liability, triggered after something goes wrong and traced back to the individual.

A due diligence duty, of the kind used in the national WHS model laws (adopted in NSW, Queensland and elsewhere but not Victoria, which has always run its own OHS Act), works the opposite way. It's a positive, standing obligation on officers themselves — not dependent on proving they knew about a specific breach. In other jurisdictions' model laws, that duty typically requires officers to keep up to date with WHS matters, understand the business's operations and hazards, ensure the business has and uses appropriate resources and processes, and verify that information about incidents and hazards is responded to.

Victoria's own published material confirms the new OHS Act duty is described as a duty for officers "to exercise due diligence," but as at this writing WorkSafe's public information sheets and FAQ page do not yet spell out the detailed elements of that duty, or its specific penalty, in the way the national model law does. That detail will matter enormously once it's published — this is the gap plant owners should watch, not guess at.

Why "reasonably practicable" still anchors everything

None of this changes the underlying standard your business is held to day-to-day. The OHS Act's core duties — including section 21 — are still qualified by what "reasonably practicable" means under Victorian OHS law. An officer due diligence duty doesn't replace that test; it adds a second, officer-level obligation sitting on top of the organisation's existing duties. Expect WorkSafe's eventual guidance to tie "reasonable steps" for officers back to the same reasonably-practicable framework already baked into Victorian enforcement practice.

It's also worth remembering that Victoria has never adopted the model Work Health and Safety Act used elsewhere — a point covered in our explainer on whether the WHS Act applies in Victoria. This reform doesn't change that. Victoria is not switching to the WHS model law; it is importing one specific feature of it — officer due diligence — into its own OHS Act, via a dangerous-goods vehicle rather than a general harmonisation bill.

The timeline, stated plainly

• 2022: Independent review of the Dangerous Goods Act 1985, led by Andrew Palmer KC, recommended modernising the framework.
• 31 March 2026: Victorian Government announced the Occupational Health and Safety Amendment (Dangerous Goods) Bill 2026 and a new Dangerous Goods Transport Bill 2026 would be introduced to Parliament.
• By mid-2026: The Bills passed Parliament, becoming the Occupational Health and Safety Amendment (Dangerous Goods) Act 2026 and the Dangerous Goods Transport Act 2026.
• April 2028 (planned): Commencement — when the new officer due diligence duty, the aggravated offence, civil penalty provisions, new court orders and the dangerous goods duties all take effect, and the old Dangerous Goods Act 1985 is repealed.

A separate piece of legislation, the Workplace Legislation Amendment (Accident Compensation and Other Matters) Act 2026, has also received Royal Assent in 2026 and touches the OHS Act — but that one is about health and safety representative powers and WorkCover financial guarantees, not officer due diligence. Don't conflate the two; they travelled through Parliament around the same time but do different jobs.

What this means for your plant before 2028

Even though commencement is roughly 18 months out at the time of writing, the duty isn't something to file away. Officer due diligence duties elsewhere in Australia have driven real changes to how boards and senior managers document safety oversight — minutes that show safety was actually discussed, evidence that hazard reports were acted on, and verification (not just policy) that controls work in practice. If Victoria's version lands anywhere near that standard, a manufacturer that currently treats safety governance as a once-a-year board slide will have real exposure.

Sensible preparation now, without overreacting to a duty whose fine detail isn't yet public:

1. Track WorkSafe's guidance as it's released — the information sheet currently available names the duty but doesn't yet detail what "exercising due diligence" will require in practice.
2. Start building the evidence trail — if your officers already review incident data, hazard reports and resourcing decisions, keep records showing it, regardless of when the duty formally starts.
3. Don't confuse this with section 144 — the two will coexist. Knowingly-concerned liability doesn't disappear; due diligence adds a separate, proactive obligation.

We'll update this article as WorkSafe publishes further detail on the due diligence duty's specific requirements ahead of the April 2028 commencement.

This article is general information for Victorian manufacturers, not legal advice. Last updated: 18 October 2026.