Right to Access and Inspect Digital Work Systems for WHS Entry Permit Holders
Work Health and Safety Amendment (Digital Work Systems) Bill 2025
Legislative Assembly
Legislative Council
Assent
Topics
algorithmic management artificial intelligence digital work systems worker surveillance workload management workplace health and safety
Introduced by: The Hon Sophie Cotsis MP (ALP); The Hon Daniel Mookhey MLC (ALP)
Links to official parliament websites
Effects of this bill
If this bill passes, it means that:
The Debate
What different members said when this bill was debated:
Sarah Mitchell NAT
“I will not use my full remaining time in debate on the Work Health and Safety Amendment (Digital Work Systems) Bill 2025, because we have had a change of approach. The Treasurer asked me for more information about my mother’s small business, a fashion boutique. I could do that, but I might need more than my remaining two minutes and 48 seconds. I might do that another time.”
Mark Banasiak SFFP
“The Work Health and Safety Amendment (Digital Work Systems) Bill 2025 has been sold to the public as a neat little fix for gig workers. But when we read the bill—not the press release or the glossy brochures—we discover that it is something a little bit different. It is not a gig economy bill; it is a power grab dressed up as workplace safety.”
Amanda Cohn GRN
“I briefly speak in support of the Work Health and Safety Amendment (Digital Work Systems) Bill 2025, in my capacity as The Greens spokesperson for health, to build on the excellent contribution already made by my colleague Ms Abigail Boyd, who is leading for The Greens in debate on this bill as our spokesperson for industrial relations and work health and safety.”
Sarah Kaine ALP
“I contribute to debate on the Work Health and Safety Amendment (Digital Work Systems) Bill 2025. For generations, work health and safety has been about visible hazards: unsafe machinery, broken guards, untrained operators or exposure to dusts and chemicals. Those dangers still exist, and we must continue to tackle them.”
Emma Hurst AJP
“On behalf of the Animal Justice Party, I speak in debate on the Work Health and Safety Amendment (Digital Work Systems) Bill 2025. The bill creates new duties requiring businesses to consider whether the use of digital systems for allocating work introduces risks such as excessive or unreasonable workloads, unreasonable performance metrics, excessive surveillance or discriminatory practices.”
“On behalf of the Legalise Cannabis Party, I speak in support of the Work Health and Safety Amendment (Digital Work Systems) Bill 2025. The changes proposed by this bill update the existing workplace laws by inserting a "digital work system" definition, which includes algorithms, artificial intelligence [AI], automation and online platforms.”
Greg Donnelly ALP
“I make a contribution to debate on the Work Health and Safety Amendment (Digital Work Systems) Bill 2025, which was introduced into the Legislative Council by Treasurer the Hon. Daniel Mookhey, MLC, on 5 February 2026.”
Nichole Overall NAT
“I contribute to debate on Labor’s Work Health and Safety Amendment (Digital Work Systems) Bill 2025. I do so as a former business owner. With the advantage of such experience, I immediately recognise the chaos and uncertainty this proposed legislation has the potential to unleash.”
Mark Buttigieg ALP
“I am pleased to speak in support of the Work Health and Safety Amendment (Digital Work Systems) Bill 2025. Since 2020, Federal and State inquiries have found that existing legal frameworks need to keep up with the modern risks created by digital systems used in modern workplaces.”
John Ruddick LIBT
“The Libertarian Party opposes the Work Health and Safety Amendment (Digital Work Systems) Bill 2025. I have a little bit to say. I will start with the politics. This State had 12 years of a Coalition Government, and then in 2023 the people elected a Labor government. The people of Australia know that Labor governments can sometimes be very left wing and crazy and destructive, like Dan Andrews.”
Bob Nanva ALP
“I have been compelled to speak in support of the Work Health and Safety Amendment (Digital Work Systems) Bill 2025.”
Daniel Mookhey ALP
“It is clear that members opposite have been looking at the bill in isolation and without considering the Work Health and Safety Act 2011.”
News articles and press releases
Work Health and Safety Amendment (Digital Work Systems) Bill 2025
Ms SOPHIE COTSIS, Minister for Industrial Relations — 2025-11-19
Schedule 1 [1] to the bill inserts a definition of a "digital work system", meaning an algorithm, artificial intelligence, automation or online platform. The definition broadly covers types of digital work systems that a person conducting a business or undertaking may use that may pose potential risks to worker health and safety. There are examples highlighted in the parliamentary inquiries to which I referred, such as in warehouse and logistics workplaces, where that technology has been used to drive productivity to a point at which it creates risks and hazards to workers’ mental and physical health and safety.