Victorian employers failing to comply with their health and safety obligations to ensure safe workplaces for their employee and others continue to face serious legal and financial consequences, with WorkSafe completing 137 prosecutions and enforceable undertakings in 2025. Of those prosecutions, seventeen tragically arose from incidents where a worker had died. Other cases involved life changing injuries such as paraplegia, brain damage and amputation.
The total of $17,391,325 in fines, costs and undertakings for breaches of the OHS Act and the Dangerous Goods Act included the fine for the state’s first workplace manslaughter conviction being increased to a record $3 million on appeal, as well as three other seven-figure penalties and twenty-nine outcomes worth more than $100,000.
The largest portion of health and safety prosecutions were against employers in construction (sixty-four), followed by manufacturing (thirty), and transport, postal and warehousing (eight).
Offences involving working at height accounted for the highest number of outcomes, with fifty-two employers – almost exclusively from the construction industry – amassing a total of $3.74 million in fines, costs and undertakings.
Breaches involving mobile plant, such as forklifts and cranes, were the second most common offence type, accounting for twenty-six successful results, followed by unguarded machinery with seventeen.
WorkSafe Chief Health and Safety Officer Sam Jenkin said the focus reflected where the most serious harm was expected to occur.
“Construction remains Victoria’s deadliest industry with sixty-nine fatalities in the last five years, largely due to preventable falls from height, but we also continue to see significant workplace harm in both the manufacturing and transport sectors,” Mr Jenkin said.
“By keeping a close eye on these industries, we’re able to identify both known and emerging risks and take strong enforcement action, even in cases where an incident has not yet occurred.”
As we know, those employers who have been successfully prosecuted by WorkSafe represent only a portion of employers who continue to breach their duty to provide a safe workplace. Every employee has the right to return home from work safely, and employers who consider your safety to be a negotiable cost prove the need for employees and their unions to remain vigilant on safety matters. If you have concerns about your safety at work speak with your HSR or union organiser.
On a side note - as was identified in the Victorian Sentencing Advisory Committee’s (SAC) 2025 report and recommendations into the sentencing of OHS offences in Victoria, it is unlikely that all of those $17M in fines will be paid. And the funds of those that are paid may not be directed back to WorkSafe to be invested into OHS prevention programs or to support WorkSafe’s enforcement activities. We look forward to the Victorian government’s response to the SAC’s full report and recommendations, including the direction of funds from prosecuted employers toward the prevention and enforcement activities that help to keep Victorian workers safe.
Read more: More than $17 million in penalties for unsafe work in 2025 | WorkSafe Victoria