Using labour hire? Your safety duties don't go with the invoice

October is when the pre-Christmas ramp-up starts for a lot of our clients. Warehouses add a night shift, distribution centres double their unload crews, and plenty of businesses bring in on-hired workers for the first time. It's also when we hear one line more than any other: "You're the employer, so the safety side is yours, right?"

It's a fair assumption, and it's wrong. When you use labour hire, the agency and your business both owe safety duties to the same worker, at the same time. Neither of you can sign that away in a contract. Here's how it works, where Victoria differs, and how to split the work so nothing falls through the gap.

Two businesses, one worker, shared duties

Under the model work health and safety (WHS) laws that apply in most of Australia, both the labour hire agency and the host business are a person conducting a business or undertaking, or PCBU. Safe Work Australia's guidance puts it plainly: as PCBUs, they are both responsible for the health and safety of the labour hire worker.

The key sentence for hosts is this one: labour hire PCBUs and host PCBUs cannot contract out of or transfer their WHS duties to each other or to anyone else. Your service agreement with an agency can set out who does what day to day. It can't make your legal duty disappear.

What the law asks for instead is cooperation. Both businesses must work together "in a cooperative and coordinated way" so that risks to on-hired workers are eliminated, or minimised so far as is reasonably practicable, and the work environment is safe.

Victoria goes a step further

Victoria doesn't run the model WHS Act. It has its own Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004, and since 22 March 2022 that Act treats a host business as the employer of a labour hire worker for safety purposes.

WorkSafe Victoria's wording is direct: a host employer owes the labour hire worker the same OHS duties as any other employee. The same 2022 changes added an express duty for labour hire providers and host employers to consult, cooperate and coordinate with each other wherever they share duties to the same worker.

WorkSafe also makes a point we like: the law doesn't intend hosts and providers to duplicate each other's work. It expects them to divide it sensibly and make sure every duty is covered by someone. That's a useful way to think about it in every state.

What sits with you as the host

You control the site, the equipment, the work and the people supervising it. So most of the hands-on duties land with you. Drawing on the Safe Work Australia and WorkSafe Victoria guidance, as a host you should expect to:

• Provide the facilities. As the PCBU at the workplace, you must make sure workers have adequate, accessible facilities (washrooms, for example), access to first aid equipment and trained first aiders, and an emergency plan that is prepared, maintained and actually implemented.
• Run a site-specific induction. The agency's general induction doesn't cover your racking layout, your traffic plan or your evacuation points. That one is yours.
• Train and supervise for the actual task. A worker can be competent in general and still new to your equipment and your process. WorkSafe Victoria notes the host must provide training, and that it will vary with the job.
• Check licences and tickets before someone does licensed work, such as operating a forklift. Ask to see it, don't assume.
• Supply and explain PPE suited to your site, including how to use, store and maintain it.
• Don't quietly change the job. WorkSafe Victoria lists not changing a labour hire worker's tasks or work location without consulting the provider and the worker. The person you booked for pick-packing shouldn't end up on a ladder or a reach truck because someone called in sick.
• Consult the worker. On-hired workers should know who your health and safety representative is, how to raise a hazard and how to report an incident.

What sits with the agency

A good provider isn't sitting back. Safe Work Australia's guidance says the labour hire PCBU must make sure the host is providing a safe working environment, including checking facilities, first aid and emergency procedures. WorkSafe Victoria adds that where there's a gap between a worker's skills and the role, it's the provider's responsibility to make sure the worker can do the job safely, either by sending someone competent or by making sure the host trains them, and then verifying that training actually happened.

In practice that means your provider should be asking you questions before the first shift. What's the work? What are the hazards? Who's the supervisor? Can we see the induction and the site? Expect a provider to visit and keep checking in once workers are placed, not just to send people and send invoices. If an agency never asks, that tells you something about how seriously they take a duty they legally share with you.

When you book workers through us, we are their legal employer and we take our side of this seriously. We'll ask about the site and the task up front, we'll want to know who supervises on the floor, and we'll stay in touch with our people while they're with you. It works best when you treat it as a shared checklist rather than something you can hand off.

Incidents: agree the process before you need it

This is where shared duties most often go wrong. Something happens on a night shift, the host assumes the agency will report it, the agency assumes the host already has, and nobody notifies the regulator.

Under the model laws, a PCBU must notify its WHS regulator immediately after becoming aware of a workplace death, a serious work-related injury or illness, or a dangerous incident. Safe Work Australia's guidance on labour hire says both businesses should have agreed processes in place for notifying the regulator. In Victoria, WorkSafe lists notifying WorkSafe of any notifiable incident or injury among the host's duties.

It's also worth knowing the rules are moving. In December 2025 Safe Work Australia published amendments to the model WHS Act that widen what counts as notifiable. They include certain dangerous incidents involving mobile plant and falls, violent incidents including sexual assault, work-related suicide and attempted suicide, and worker absences of 15 or more consecutive calendar days because of a work-related injury or illness. Those changes only take legal effect once each state or territory adopts them, and each will set its own timeline. Safe Work Australia's advice is to check with your local regulator before changing your reporting systems. For a forklift-heavy site, the mobile plant change is the one to watch.

Settle in writing, before the first shift: who calls the regulator, who preserves the scene, who tells the other party, and how fast.

A pre-peak checklist for hosts

If you're bringing on-hired workers in for the busy season, run through this before day one:

1. Brief the provider properly. Tasks, hours, hazards, equipment, PPE and any licences needed. Our guide to planning a peak-season workforce covers what a good brief looks like.
2. Name a supervisor for each shift and give the provider their contact details.
3. Have a site induction ready, and keep a record of who completed it and when.
4. Check tickets on the first day for any licensed work.
5. Agree the incident process with your provider, in writing.
6. Lock in task changes. Any change to tasks or location goes back through the provider and the worker first.
7. Review after the first week. New starters on a busy site are where risk concentrates, so ask your provider for their read too.

If you're scaling a team quickly, our piece on growing a warehouse team fast goes into the operational side, and our warehouse and distribution labour hire page explains how we staff those sites.

This is general information, not legal advice. Your duties depend on your state, your site and the work being done, so check with your WHS regulator or get advice on your situation. If you'd like to talk through how we split safety responsibilities with the businesses we supply, get in touch.