Australian Work Health and Safety Principles
Who holds WHS duties in a shop, café, bar or hotel — including franchisees — what workers must do, and why casuals and students are owed the same protection as everyone else.
Last reviewed September 2026 · Part of Manual Handling Training for Hospitality and Retail Workers
Key learning points
- Describe the duties of a business (PCBU) and of workers under Australian WHS law
- Explain what the Hazardous Manual Tasks Code of Practice is and how it is used
- Understand that franchisees, labour hire hosts and small businesses all hold duties
- Recognise that young, casual and student workers are owed the same induction and protection
- Explain consultation and why reporting is part of the safety system
One model law, applied locally
Most Australian states and territories have adopted the model Work Health and Safety Act and Regulations developed by Safe Work Australia. Victoria has not — its Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 uses different words for similar ideas, and WorkSafe Victoria publishes its own compliance code for hazardous manual handling. Each jurisdiction has a regulator: SafeWork NSW, WorkSafe Victoria, Workplace Health and Safety Queensland, WorkSafe WA, SafeWork SA, WorkSafe Tasmania, WorkSafe ACT and NT WorkSafe.
Requirements differ
Work health and safety requirements, regulators and codes of practice differ between states and territories, and between employers and individual workplaces. This course provides general education only. It is not legal advice about your circumstances.
Who holds the duties
The law places the primary duty on the person conducting a business or undertaking — the PCBU. In hospitality and retail that is the company, partnership or sole trader actually running the workplace: the café owner, the supermarket operator, the pub licensee, the hotel operator. It does not matter whether the business is a national chain or a two-person kiosk.
Duty holders in hospitality and retail
- The business (PCBU)
- Holds the primary duty to ensure health and safety so far as is reasonably practicable — including for manual tasks
- A franchisee
- Is the PCBU for their own store or restaurant. The franchisor may also hold duties where it controls layout, equipment or procedures, and duties overlap rather than cancel out
- Labour hire agency and host
- Both hold duties to an agency worker placed in a kitchen or store. Neither can leave induction to the other
- Officers
- Owners, directors and senior managers must exercise due diligence — knowing the risks and making sure resources and processes exist
- Workers
- Employees, casuals, apprentices, trainees, students on placement, volunteers and contractors' staff — everyone who carries out work
- Other people at the workplace
- Customers, delivery drivers and guests must not be put at risk by the way work is done, for example by a loaded roll cage left on a slope
What the business is expected to do
- Provide and maintain a working environment that is safe, so far as is reasonably practicable
- Identify hazardous manual tasks in the workplace and control the risks
- Provide suitable equipment — keg trolleys, sack trucks, step stools, pallet jacks, anti-fatigue mats — and keep it maintained
- Provide information, training, instruction and supervision, including an induction before a new worker does the task
- Consult workers about health and safety matters that affect them
- Have a way for workers to report hazards, incidents, injuries and equipment faults
What a worker is expected to do
- Take reasonable care for your own health and safety
- Take reasonable care that what you do does not harm others — colleagues, customers, delivery drivers
- Comply with reasonable instructions given by the business
- Co-operate with reasonable policies and procedures, such as a two-person rule for kegs
- Use the equipment provided, correctly, and only when trained
- Report hazards, incidents, near misses, early symptoms and faulty equipment
The Code of Practice
Safe Work Australia publishes the model Code of Practice: Hazardous Manual Tasks, which most regulators have approved for their jurisdiction. A code of practice is practical guidance on how to meet the legal duty. It is not law in itself, but courts and inspectors can use it as evidence of what is known about a hazard and what is reasonably practicable. The Code sets out the risk factors, the risk management process and the hierarchy of controls that this course follows.
Follow your workplace
Your employer's procedures, instructions and equipment rules always take precedence over general training. Where this course and a workplace procedure differ, follow the workplace procedure and raise the difference with your supervisor.
Young, casual and student workers
The duties above do not depend on your contract type, your age or how many hours you work. A sixteen-year-old casual on their second shift is owed the same induction, training, supervision and equipment as a full-time supervisor. Being new is not a reason to guess how a task is done — it is a reason for the business to show you. If no one has shown you how a delivery is received or where the trolley is kept, asking is part of doing the job properly.
Consultation
Consultation means workers have a genuine say in decisions that affect their safety. The person filling the shelves knows which aisle is too narrow for the roll cage; the kitchen hand knows which bin is always overfilled. In small businesses consultation is often a pre-shift huddle or a conversation with the owner. Larger businesses may have health and safety representatives and safety committees. Raising an observation is part of the system, not a complaint.
Practical scenario
Scenario: the franchise café
You work at a franchised café. The franchisor's operations manual says milk crates are to be moved on the crate trolley and never stacked more than two high when carried. The franchisee who owns the store tells you the trolley is broken and to just carry the crates in three at a time to get through the morning.
Who holds the duty here, and what should you do?
Reveal the explanation
The franchisee is the PCBU for the store and holds the primary duty for your safety; the franchisor may hold duties too, but neither can direct you to work in a way that is unsafe. A broken trolley is a hazard to be fixed, not a reason to carry more. Say that you will bring the crates in one at a time or wait for the trolley, ask for it to be repaired or replaced, and report the instruction if it is repeated. Following the procedure in the manual is following your workplace procedure.
Practical scenario
Scenario: the labour hire kitchen hand
A labour hire agency sends you to a hotel kitchen for a function. No one inducts you. Twenty minutes in, the sous chef asks you to move a full stock pot from the stove to the cool room.
What does the law expect, and what should you do?
Reveal the explanation
Both the agency and the hotel hold duties to you, and the hotel cannot assume the agency has trained you on its kitchen. You are entitled to ask how the kitchen normally moves a full pot — usually it is never carried; it is cooled and decanted, or moved on a trolley by two people. Ask for a quick induction on the tasks you will be doing and who to report to. Declining to carry a full hot pot until you have been shown a safe method is taking reasonable care, which is your duty.
Knowledge check
These questions are for your own learning. They are not part of the final assessment.
1. A casual worker on their second shift is asked to unload a pallet of stock with no induction. What should they expect under WHS law?
WHS duties do not depend on contract type or hours worked. A business must provide information, training, instruction and supervision to every worker.
2. Which of the following is a worker's duty under Australian WHS principles?
Workers must take reasonable care for themselves and others and co-operate with reasonable policies and instructions. Providing equipment and procedures is the business's duty.
3. What is the model Code of Practice: Hazardous Manual Tasks?
A code of practice explains how to comply with the law. It can be used as evidence of what is reasonably practicable, and it sets no weight limits.
4. In a franchised store, who holds the primary WHS duty for the workers in that store?
The franchisee is the PCBU for their own store. Duties can overlap — a franchisor that controls layout or procedures may also hold them — but they never cancel out.
Sources and further reading
The framework this module summarises, from the regulators themselves. Your workplace procedures always take precedence.
- Safe Work Australia — Model Code of Practice: Hazardous manual tasks — The national code the state and territory regulators adopt or mirror.
- Safe Work Australia — Lifting, pushing and pulling (manual tasks)
- Safe Work Australia — Model WHS laws