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Today's article asks whether directors who did not personally create a hazard can be prosecuted because they failed to ensure that the organisation managed it. While that prosecution does not yet appear in the published Australian psychosocial safety enforcement record, there is a statutory basis.
Printco: personal liability, with an important qualification
In March 2024, Printco (Aust) Pty Ltd and its director, Neil Pearson, were sentenced in the Moorabbin Magistrates' Court after pleading guilty to one charge each under the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 (Vic).
Printco was convicted and fined $20,000 for failing to provide and maintain a safe system of work. Pearson was separately convicted and fined $20,000 for failing to take reasonable care as an officer of the company. They were also ordered to pay combined costs of $9,309.
The Court heard that a subcontractor had been subjected to verbal abuse, intimidation and threats by Pearson over four years. The bullying culminated in a recorded telephone call in August 2021, during which Pearson yelled, swore at and abused the subcontractor after they questioned the legality of working during a COVID-19 lockdown.
The subcontractor developed a mental injury that left them unable to work. WorkSafe inspectors also found that other workers had been subjected to Pearson's inappropriate behaviour.
Regarding liability, it was determined:
- Printco had policies and procedures addressing workplace bullying, but they were inadequate. They did not explain how workers could report inappropriate behaviour, provide definitions or examples of bullying, or include training for workers.
- It was reasonably practicable for Printco and Pearson to have provided and maintained a safe system of work for identifying, reporting, investigating and stopping inappropriate workplace behaviour, including workplace bullying.
The case demonstrates that psychosocial safety liability can become personal. But it does not establish that an otherwise uninvolved director will be personally liable solely because the organisation's governance systems failed.
Pearson was not removed from the conduct at the centre of the prosecution. He was the person whose behaviour created the risk. His personal exposure arose in circumstances where his conduct and his responsibilities as an officer were directly connected.
What the enforcement record has established
Printco forms part of a broader enforcement trajectory.
The Department of Defence conviction established that an organisation can be prosecuted for failing to manage psychosocial risks embedded in an ordinary workplace process. Defence had policies and guidance addressing psychological health and safety. What it lacked was supervisors trained to apply the available controls when psychosocial risk emerged during performance management. No individual officer was prosecuted. The case was brought against Defence as the employer.
Printco liability reached an individual, but that individual was also responsible for the bullying conduct.
Read together, the cases establish two parts of the emerging enforcement position. Organisations can be prosecuted for failures in psychosocial risk systems. Individuals can be prosecuted when their own conduct creates the risk.
For directors and senior executives, the practical question is how to demonstrate that due diligence is being exercised before a regulator tests it. Our Psychosocial Safety Leadership Program is designed around this exact obligation: building the governance, leadership capability and evidence base that officers need to discharge their personal duty.
What the published Australian enforcement record does not yet appear to contain is a psychosocial safety prosecution against an officer who did not personally create the hazard but failed to exercise due diligence over the organisation's systems for managing it.
In the model WHS jurisdictions, however, section 27 provides the statutory basis for such a prosecution.
Section 27: a personal duty of due diligence
Section 27 of the model Work Health and Safety Act requires officers to exercise due diligence to ensure that the person conducting the business or undertaking complies with its health and safety duties.
An officer is not limited to a company director. The term can include a director, company secretary, chief executive and other senior executives who make, or participate in making, decisions that affect the whole or a substantial part of the organisation, have the capacity to significantly affect its financial standing, or a person in accordance with whose instructions or wishes the directors are accustomed to act (excluding advice given in the proper performance of a professional role).
Whether an individual is an officer depends on the substance of their role; their actual authority, influence and involvement in organisational decision-making rather than their job title alone. Accordingly, some executives may be officers under section 27, while managers responsible only for a discrete team or operational area will generally not be.
The duty is personal and cannot be delegated.
An officer does not need to manage every hazard, make every operational decision or personally implement every control. Due diligence requires reasonable steps to ensure that appropriate resources and processes exist, relevant information is received and considered, the organisation complies with its duties, and the systems relied upon are being used and remain effective.
The focus is governance and oversight.
An officer's exposure under section 27 does not depend on whether they personally bullied, harassed or otherwise harmed a worker. The relevant question is whether they exercised due diligence to ensure that the organisation identified and managed the risk.
Physical safety prosecutions have already demonstrated that officers can be personally liable for failures of governance and oversight without personally causing the incident. What has not yet been tested in a reported prosecution is the application of that principle to psychosocial risk.
For executive teams and boards, the absence of that test case should not be confused with the absence of a duty.
Six duties needing six bodies of evidence
Section 27 of the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 provides that due diligence includes taking reasonable steps across six areas. In relation to psychosocial health and safety, each element should be supported by contemporaneous governance records demonstrating what the officer knew, considered, decided and verified. Maintaining documents is not, by itself, sufficient: the evidence should demonstrate active and continuing oversight.
1. Acquire and keep up-to-date knowledge of work health and safety matters
Officers should receive substantive and regular updates on psychosocial hazards, applicable legal and regulatory developments, emerging risks, relevant codes of practice and significant enforcement activity. Records may include officer training, legal or regulatory briefings, board papers and executive updates demonstrating that officers' knowledge remained current.
2. Understand the nature of the operations and the associated hazards and risks
Officers should understand how the organisation's operations, workforce arrangements and systems of work may expose workers or other persons to psychosocial risks. This should be supported by a current psychosocial risk profile identifying material hazards across business units, workforce groups, locations and working arrangements. The profile should consider risks arising from matters such as work design, job demands, organisational change, inadequate support, performance management, workplace conflict, investigations, harmful behaviours and digital work systems. Our Psychosocial Hazard & Risk Advisory provides this risk profile and control mapping for Australian organisations.
3. Ensure that appropriate resources and processes are available for use, and are used, to eliminate or minimise risks
Officers should ensure that the organisation has — and actually uses — adequate people, expertise, systems, time and financial resources to manage psychosocial risks. These risks should be considered before material organisational decisions are approved. Restructures, workload and staffing decisions, procurement, transformation programs, performance management systems and investigation processes may create or intensify psychosocial hazards. The governance record should demonstrate that risks were assessed while there remained a genuine opportunity to modify the proposal, and that appropriate controls and resources were approved and implemented.
4. Ensure that appropriate processes exist for receiving, considering and responding in a timely way to information about incidents, hazards and risks
Board and executive reporting should include relevant leading and lagging indicators, worker consultation and employee voice data, complaints, investigation findings, incidents, absence and workers' compensation information, and the status of corrective actions. Merely receiving information is insufficient. Governance records should demonstrate how information was considered, whether patterns or emerging risks were identified, what decisions were made and whether action was taken within an appropriate timeframe.
5. Ensure that the organisation has, and implements, processes for complying with its WHS duties and obligations
The organisation should maintain a documented psychosocial risk management framework that translates its legal obligations into operational processes. This should include processes for hazard identification, risk management, worker consultation, training and instruction, incident notification where required, compliance with regulatory notices, escalation, monitoring and review. Accountabilities should be clearly allocated, and the framework should be integrated into the organisation's broader WHS and management systems rather than treated solely as an HR policy or wellbeing initiative.
6. Verify the provision and use of the resources and processes referred to above
Verification requires officers to actively confirm that resources have been provided, processes are being used and controls are operating effectively. A policy does not establish that managers can identify psychosocial hazards; training completion does not demonstrate that learning is applied; and a dashboard does not prove that concerns are escalated or corrective actions completed. Verification may include internal or independent assurance, audits, control testing, case-file reviews, worker consultation, employee experience data, site or business-unit reviews, and confirmation that identified deficiencies have been addressed.
What directors and senior executives should be asking now
Given the statutory duty, even in the absence of documented prosecution, directors and senior executives are advised to examine whether the evidence required to discharge the existing duty would withstand regulatory scrutiny. Culture Plus supports this through board and executive briefings, workplace culture reviews and the Psychosocial Safety Blueprint™.
Relevant questions include:
- Is there a current profile of the organisation's material psychosocial risks?
- Can directors identify where those risks sit and which workforce groups are most exposed?
- Are psychosocial risks considered before material organisational decisions are approved?
- What leading indicators reach the executive and board?
- What evidence shows that the information is considered and acted upon?
- Who is accountable for operating each material psychosocial control?
- Is there evidence that those controls are being used and are effective?
- When were the controls last independently or internally assured?
- Are corrective actions tracked through to completion?
- Can each officer demonstrate their engagement through contemporaneous records?
These are not questions for HR or WHS to answer on behalf of directors. HR and WHS may design processes, provide information and support implementation. The officer must still exercise the judgement, inquiry and verification required by their personal duty.
Key takeaways for directors and executives
- The duty is personal and non-delegable. Section 27 of the model WHS Act imposes a direct obligation on officers to exercise due diligence. It cannot be transferred to HR, WHS or line management.
- Liability is already proven in two forms.
- The Defence conviction confirms organisations can be prosecuted for failing to manage psychosocial risks in ordinary systems of work.
- The Printco conviction confirms individual officers can be personally liable when their own conduct creates the risk.
- The untested case is the gap. What has not yet appeared in the published Australian enforcement record is a prosecution of an officer who did not personally create the hazard but failed to exercise due diligence over the organisation's systems for managing it. Section 27 provides the statutory basis.
- Six duties need six bodies of evidence. Officers should be able to produce contemporaneous records demonstrating active and continuing oversight across knowledge, risk understanding, resources, information handling, compliance processes and verification.
- Documents alone are insufficient. A policy, training completion report or risk dashboard does not discharge the duty. The evidence must show that controls are resourced, used, effective, independently or internally assured, and that corrective actions are tracked to completion.
- The questions are executive questions. Whether the organisation has a current psychosocial risk profile, considers psychosocial risk before major decisions, receives leading indicators and acts on them, and can verify control effectiveness are matters for the board and executive team — not only for HR or WHS.
This article provides general executive commentary and does not constitute legal advice. Organisations should obtain advice from qualified legal practitioners about their particular obligations and circumstances.
Download the full Psychosocial Safety Blueprint™ →
If your executive team or board is reviewing how due diligence is evidenced across psychosocial risk, Culture Plus can help. We work with directors, executive teams and people leaders to build the governance systems, leadership capability and assurance processes that turn legal obligation into operational practice. For organisations seeking a single, integrated leadership development pathway, our Safety. Respect. Inclusion. Integrated Leadership Program combines psychosocial safety, Respect at Work and inclusive leadership into one coherent curriculum.
Sources
- WorkSafe Victoria, "Sign company and bully boss fined $40,000", 1 March 2024.
- Comcare, "Defence convicted after RAAF worker's death", 19 December 2025.
- Work Health and Safety Act 2011, section 27, model provisions as enacted in the Commonwealth and harmonised jurisdictions.
- Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 (Vic).
- Safe Work Australia, Interpretive Guideline—Model Work Health and Safety Act: The Health and Safety Duty of an Officer under Section 27.
- The Psychosocial Safety Blueprint™, Culture Plus Executive Papers No. 01, Chapters 4 and 7.
Felicity Menzies is the CEO and Principal Consultant of Culture Plus Consulting, a specialist practice focused on building respectful, safe, and inclusive workplace cultures across corporate and government organisations in Australia.