In addition to the AMSA requirements fishing and aquaculture vessels and operations are also “workplaces’ as defined in each states work health safety legislation.

This means that your SMS should also contain any additional requirements that the Work Health Safety legislation contains.

There are common areas where both the Marine Legislation and workplace legislation address such as things like safe procedures for work, training ,emergency procedures, plant and equipment, lifting and carrying and incident reporting.

Safe Work Australia

SWA is an Australian government statutory body established in 2008 to develop national policy relating to WHS and workers’ compensation.

SWA works to:

  • Develop and evaluate national policy and strategies
  • Develop and evaluate the model whs legislative framework
  • Undertake research, and
  • Collect, analyse and report data.

As a national policy body, Safe Work Australia do not regulate WHS laws. The States and Territories retain responsibility for regulating and enforcing WHS laws in their jurisdictions.

State and Territory Worksafe Agencies

Each State and Territory has a government agency who are responsible for:

  • Administering the work health safety legislation
  • Provide recourse to assist business to comply with the legislation
  • Maintain an incident reporting and where required investigation process.


The links to each State and Territory Agency are listed below.