WHS prosecutions decline but average financial penalty reaches record high

Safe Work Australia (SWA) has released new work health and safety prosecutions data, which shows that while the number of WHS prosecutions declined in 2025, the average financial penalty reached a record high, with a 33% increase from 2024 on the average financial penalty per prosecution. This was $147,985 — the highest annual average recorded.

SWA’s prosecutions dashboard provides national information on criminal prosecutions for breaches of WHS laws and regulations since 1 January 2020, including incidents, offences and sentencing outcomes. Key insights from the data include that following four consecutive years of increases, the number of WHS prosecutions fell to 308, down from 321 in 2024.

Other key insights include that construction, manufacturing and mining were the three most common industry divisions among defendants — at 43%, 20% and 6% of cases, respectively. Updated annually, construction and manufacturing have remained the most common industry divisions among defendants since data collection began in 2020.

You can find the latest WHS prosecutions data at data.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/interactive-data/topic/whs-prosecutions and other WHS dashboards on SWA’s interactive data website, Our Data. Your Stories: data.safeworkaustralia.gov.au.

Image credit: iStock.com/Andrey Semenov. Stock image used is for illustrative purposes only.