The Victorian Government has finally released its official response to the recommendations of the State Sentencing Advisory Council's (SAC's) review of the sentencing of OHS offences.
The Sentencing Advisory Council delivered the review report to the Victorian Government in February 2025, outlining twelve recommendations for reform regarding the sentencing of OHS offences in Victoria. The recommendations included significantly increasing maximum penalties for breaching OHS duties in line with community expectations.
The review examined current sentencing practices for OHS offences in Victoria and whether those practices align with community expectations. It also considered the role of injured workers and the families of deceased workers in sentencing proceedings and the enforcement of sentencing orders, particularly court fines.
Following concerted advocacy from Victorian workers the Government have this year legislated to implement a number of the recommendations.
Increased use of H&S undertakings and adverse publicity orders already completed
Of the twelve recommendations, the Government report that two have already been completed, with WorkSafe policies now available for the increased use of both health and safety undertakings (rec 5) and adverse publicity orders (rec 6 - see SafetyNet’s previous reporting on these policies).
Government supports victim impact statement framework
The Government supports in full two further recommendations – the creation of a framework that allows affected persons to make impact statements in sentencing proceedings involving OHS offences (rec 1), and the reformation of health and safety undertakings (rec 4) with the intention of increasing their use. Last week the Government passed legislation to implement both of these recommendations.
Government expects other legislation will ‘calibrate’ increased sentences
Earlier in 2026, prior to responding to the SAC report, the Government passed amendments to the OHS Act and DG Transport Act. Under that legislation the Government has introduced a new offence for an aggravated breach of the general duty to do what is reasonably practicable to ensure workers’ health and safety, which has higher maximum penalties than the existing general duty offences. The effective date of operation for these new laws are 26 April 2028 unless an earlier date is proclaimed.
However, it seems increasingly unlikely that they will act on the SAC recommendation to fully increase the maximum fines for breaches of the main duties in the OHS Act before the upcoming State election, with their response indicating that they support only in principle the call for maximum penalty increases for general duty offences (rec 7).
The Government states that they will continue to consider additional changes to strengthen OHS sentencing practices to increase deterrence should it be warranted but note that ‘maintaining alignment with penalties in other Australian jurisdictions remains an important consideration’.
The Government response indicated support only in part an increase in the penalty for reckless endangerment offences for individuals (rec 8), however, amendments to the recently passed Workplace Legislation Amendment (Accident Compensation and Other Matters) Bill 2026 enacted recommendation 8 of the Sentencing Advisory Council report by significantly increasing penalties for reckless endangerment.
The SAC’s recommendations on these matters were intended to ensure that fines are appropriate for the size of offending companies and reflect community calls for courts to impose larger fines on larger companies.
Commitment to develop sentencing guidelines to reflect community expectations
The sentencing guidelines (rec 9) proposed by SAC’s recommendations would create a world-first legislated sentencing guideline to drive meaningful changes in sentencing outcomes, so that sentences achieve more meaningful OHS-related outcomes, give greater effect to the sentencing purposes of stronger and proportionate punishment and deterrence, and are brought in line with community expectations. In their response to this recommendation, the Government supports in principle the development of legislated sentencing guidelines and commits to develop the guidelines after the completion of their separate and ongoing SAC review of the Sentencing Act.
Of the remaining five recommendations the Government:
- supports in principle - the development of a restorative justice framework (rec 2) and a restorative justice pilot program (rec 3), and the empowering of Fines Victoria to issue declared director notices (rec 11) - NOTE: the government say that they have enacted this recommendation and therefore only 'support in part' because they do not believe the annual review is necessary as it is now a part of the everyday consideration of Fines Victoria.
- supports in part - ensuring that OHS fines are paid into the WorkCover Authority Fund (rec 10) - NOTE: they only say support in part because it is their view the legislation does this already and it is an administrative failure rather than legislative that is the problem. They say they are acting on this.
- and is conducting further analysis to determine their positions on the introduction of a successor liability framework (rec 12).
Read more: Government response to Sentencing Advisory Council's Report