Both businesses, at the workplace
The safety side is a duty both businesses hold: the labour hire company and the host.
The national regulator names both sides of the arrangement: the labour hire agency and the host organisation are each a person conducting a business or undertaking.
“Both the labour hire agency and the host organisation are persons conducting a business or undertaking (PCBUs). As PCBUs they are both responsible for the health and safety of the labour hire worker.”
Safe Work Australia, labour hire WHS duties. Read 13 October 2026.
The host, as the PCBU at the workplace, must make sure workers have adequate and accessible facilities and access to first aid equipment and trained first aid officers.
An emergency plan must also be prepared, maintained and implemented for the workplace.
The labour hire PCBU, in turn, must check the host is providing a safe working environment, including access to adequate facilities, first aid, and emergency plans and procedures.
The starting duty for either business is to manage the risks the work creates for labour hire workers.
Each PCBU carries its own duties for workers’ health and safety, and the regulator says the businesses must consult one another as well.
What the host business is asked to do
SafeWork NSW’s page for host employers of labour hire workers sets the host’s part out under “You must look after the health and safety of your workers at work”:
- “provide labour hire workers with a workplace specific induction. This will usually cover all the work health and safety elements particular to the workplace and the tasks they will be performing”.
- “do not ask them to do anything that needs a special licence, like drive a car, a crane or a forklift, if they don’t have the right licence”.
- “ensure the worker knows the work health and safety consultation process and how to report incidents and hazards”.
- “consult the worker and the labour hire PCBU before any change to the scope or location of their work”.
The national regulator’s list adds the same consultation point: both PCBUs must make sure the worker understands the consultation process and how to report hazards or incidents, and that new hazards or changing risks are assessed and managed.
Personal protective equipment is part of it too: SafeWork NSW says the host and the labour hire agency need to agree who provides it.
SafeWork NSW’s page also puts the management of work-related risks from alcohol and other drugs on the businesses.
What the provider keeps
The labour hire business keeps the duties that travel with the worker: checking the qualifications, experience or licence the work needs.
It also provides any extra training the particular work requires, and a safety induction setting out the site’s WHS policies, procedures and practices.
None of it can be handed over: “Labour hire PCBUs and host PCBUs cannot contract out of or transfer their WHS duties to each other or another party.”
Where the two duties meet
For the duties both businesses carry, Safe Work Australia’s words are cooperative and coordinated: all the PCBUs in the arrangement must work together so that every duty is met.
The worker sits under both at once: Victoria’s Authority says that, for workplace safety, a host is treated as the worker’s employer on its site, and it asks hosts to consult, coordinate and cooperate with their providers.
Where the official words are
The shared duty lines are Safe Work Australia’s, the host’s list is SafeWork NSW’s, and the Victorian lines are the Labour Hire Authority’s. All were read on 13 October 2026.