WHS Best Practice Review 2026: Codes, Contractors, and Costs

If you run a building through other people's workers, the cleaners, the security guards, the lift technicians, the question you get asked most is who is responsible for what. In October 2026 Safe Work Australia published its answer to how the model WHS laws should change, in the final report of the Best Practice Review.¹ This is what its 21 recommendations mean for a facilities manager at a property owner, managing agent, or FM company, and why none of them changes what you must do this week.

What Is the WHS Best Practice Review?

It is the first national review of the model WHS laws since 2018. WHS ministers asked Safe Work Australia to examine where states and territories have varied the model laws and whether those variations should become part of the model laws.¹² Consultation ran from September 2025 to March 2026 and drew more than 1,000 submissions or survey responses.¹ The final report went to ministers on 4 August 2026, and ministers agreed to publish it in October 2026.¹

The 21 recommendations run from a renewed commitment to harmonisation, through codes of practice and enforcement, to new national strategies on artificial intelligence, climate change, and harmful workplace behaviours.²

Is the Best Practice Review Law Yet?

No. At their meeting of 24 August 2026, ministers noted the final report and said that no decisions had been made on its recommendations.³ Safe Work Australia says the recommendations will now be progressed through its tripartite Member processes, with further consultation and policy development where required.¹

Even an agreed change has a long road. The Review itself asks that amendments to the model laws agreed nationally be prioritised for passage through each jurisdiction's parliament, because a change to the model laws reaches a workplace only through each jurisdiction's own law.² Until then, your duties are the ones in your own state or territory's WHS Act, or in Victoria the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004.⁸

The Recommendations That Touch Contractor Management.

Most of the report is about regulators, representatives, and process. Six parts of the report reach the way a property or FM business engages contractors.

Shared duties in contracting chains. The Review heard that "in complex contracting and investment chains it can be difficult to understand how these principles apply in practice".² It does not propose a new duty. It concludes the model Act already provides for several duty holders, and proposes that industry codes of practice give examples of how influence and control operate across them.² The law it points to, in the model WHS Act, is unchanged: more than one person can hold the same duty (section 16), a duty cannot be transferred (section 14), and each person with a duty in relation to the same matter must, so far as is reasonably practicable, consult, cooperate, and coordinate with the others who hold it (section 46).⁴

Codes of practice. Recommendation 15 would provide that a person who complies with a code is taken to have complied with the relevant duty for the matters the code addresses. Recommendation 16 asks for industry-based codes with small business toolkits, starting with retail, education and training, agriculture, and construction, and Recommendation 17 asks ministers to consider national codes that apply automatically in model law jurisdictions once WHS ministers agree them.²

Legal costs insurance. The model Act already prohibits insuring against WHS fines, but not against the legal costs of defending a prosecution. Recommendation 11 would close that, so that insurance or an indemnity cannot cover the legal fees of a person being prosecuted.²

Who can prosecute. Recommendation 10 would give any person or organisation standing to prosecute WHS offences, informed by the New South Wales and New Zealand approaches.²

Strata volunteers. Recommendation 5 would amend section 34 of the model Act to make it clear that volunteer officers of a strata or community titles corporation are not liable for a breach of the officer duties.²

Risk management for all work. Recommendation 6 would lift the risk management process in Part 3.1 of the model WHS Regulations into the Act, so it clearly applies to all work and workplaces, and apply the hierarchy of controls to psychosocial risks.²

NSW Codes Already Set the Minimum, and the Review Wants Something Different.

This is the recommendation a NSW property manager should read twice. SafeWork NSW says that since 1 July 2026, under section 26A of the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (NSW), a business must comply with an approved code of practice, or manage hazards and risks to a standard equivalent to or higher than the standard required under the code.⁵⁶

The Review compared three approaches to codes. Under the model Act (section 275), a code is admissible in a prosecution as evidence of whether a duty was met, and a business may show it met the duty another way that gives an equivalent or higher standard. Queensland's Work Health and Safety Act 2011 has had a comply-or-equivalent rule, like the one NSW now has, in section 26A since 1 July 2018. And under section 152 of Victoria's Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004, a person who complies with a compliance code is taken to have complied with the Act on the duty it covers.²⁷⁸ It found those three broadly similar in practice, and recommended that codes not be mandatory and that Victoria's deeming approach be adopted.²⁸ For a portfolio that crosses the Murray, a compliance code is already a safe harbour in Victoria under section 152, SafeWork NSW says an approved code is the minimum standard in NSW, and the Review would like the safe harbour everywhere.

Worked Example: A Managing Agent Reviewing Its Cleaning Contract.

A managing agent runs eight office buildings in Sydney, and its cleaning contract is up for renewal in early 2027. The head of facilities asks whether the Review changes the tender.

The Review changes one question in the tender, and NSW law has already changed another. Nothing in the Review changes how duties are shared today, so the tender still asks how the agent and the cleaner will consult, cooperate, and coordinate on chemicals, lone work, and after-hours access. In those buildings, the tender names the approved codes the cleaner's work touches, because SafeWork NSW says each code's standard is already the minimum there: a PCBU must follow the code or manage the risk to an equivalent or higher standard, and both the agent and the cleaner can be PCBUs for this work.⁵ And the agent's own broker is asked what its policy covers for the legal costs of defending a WHS prosecution, since Recommendation 11, if adopted into the model Act and then enacted in NSW, would end cover for those fees.² The agent keeps the tender questions, the cleaner's answers, and the broker's reply with the contract.

What a Property or FM Business Should Do Now.

1. Change nothing because of the Review alone. It is a set of recommendations: ministers had made no decisions on them at 24 August 2026, and any that change the model Act would still need to pass each parliament.³
2. Keep the consultation records you already owe. Who agreed what with which contractor, and when, is the evidence any future industry code will expect. Our guide to the duty to consult, cooperate, and coordinate sets out what it covers.
3. In NSW, map your contractors' work to the approved codes. SafeWork NSW says the duty behind this has applied since 1 July 2026: a PCBU must comply with each approved code, or manage the risk to an equivalent or higher standard.⁵
4. Ask about legal costs cover at your next insurance renewal, so a change does not arrive as a surprise.
5. Watch for the first industry codes. The first group named is retail, education and training, agriculture, and construction; no property or FM code is among them.²

Keeping the Paper Trail Ready for Whatever Comes Next.

The NSW step above is a site-by-site job: which approved codes each building's contracted work touches, and what each contractor has to show for it. In ComplyFlow's contractor management software, document and training requirements can be assigned to an individual site, and adding a document requirement moves the people assigned to that site to Documents Pending.⁹ More on how this works for property and facilities management and for facilities managers, including the PCBU duties a property owner already holds.

The Review has a long way to go before any of it reaches a statute book. The records that show you consulted your contractors this year will be read under whichever version of the law is in force when something goes wrong.