Who is the PCBU in a leased warehouse?

PCBU is a role rather than a title. The business conducting the operation is one; a labour hire provider, a contractor or a client storing goods may hold duties too, depending on the arrangement. Which describes your situation turns on your contracts and how the site runs, and your regulator can point you at the right test.

Does a worker taking care of themselves reduce the business's duty?

No. The duties operate at the same time rather than passing between parties. A worker's failure to follow an instruction does not remove the PCBU's primary duty.

Is Safe Work Australia my regulator?

No. It develops the model WHS laws and publishes the model Codes of Practice. Its own material states that it is not a regulator and cannot advise you about work health and safety issues at your workplace, and points readers to their state or territory authority.

Does the same WHS law apply everywhere in Australia?

Close to it, with one clear exception. Most jurisdictions enact their own version of the model WHS Act and Regulations, so the detail can differ. Victoria did not harmonise and operates under its Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 instead.

Who owes what: WHS duties in a warehouse

Australian work health and safety law does not begin with racking, forklifts or floor marking. It begins with three duties — one on the business, one on its officers, one on every worker — and nearly every other question on a warehouse floor hangs off that frame.

Last updated 2026-08-24

Three duties, in the regulator's own words

Safe Work Australia states the structure plainly. A PCBU — a person conducting a business or undertaking — "has a primary duty to ensure the health and safety of workers while they are at work in the business or undertaking and others who may be affected by the carrying out of work". The second half is the part people skip: visiting drivers, a contractor pulling down a run of racking, a client walking the pick face all sit inside the duty.

An officer of a PCBU "has a duty to exercise due diligence to ensure a business or undertaking complies with their duties under the model WHS laws". A worker must "take reasonable care for their own health and safety, and that of others who may be affected by the worker's acts or omissions", and must comply with reasonable instructions and cooperate with the business's WHS policies.

Three duties, three different people, three different tests, all running at once. A worker's duty does not shrink the business's. An officer's duty is not discharged by the business having written a policy.

PCBU is a wider word than employer

The term exists because "employer" was too narrow. A PCBU captures the warehouse operator, and depending on the arrangement it can also capture a labour hire provider supplying pickers, a contractor running an installation, or a client whose goods sit on the racking. More than one PCBU can hold a duty over the same aisle at the same time, and where they do, they are expected to consult one another.

For a third-party warehouse this is not academic. A 3PL arrangement can put two or three businesses into a duty relationship over one floor, which is a different question from who owns the stock. We describe the category; which one applies to you depends on your contracts and how the site actually runs.

PCBU is a role, not a job title, and more than one can apply to the same site
Duties run concurrently rather than transferring from one party to another

Where the officer duty stops being something we can explain

The officer duty is personal and separate from the company's. We quote Safe Work Australia's statement of it above and stop there: the page we retrieved states the duty without itemising what due diligence consists of, and that content sits in the WHS Act section itself, which we did not retrieve.

The criminal-liability end of this — the manslaughter offences various jurisdictions have added — is outside what this site covers. It is generic criminal law, it moves faster than anything else in this area, and a lawyer or your regulator is the right source for it.

One model, and then a separate enactment in every jurisdiction

Safe Work Australia writes the model laws and the model Codes. It is not a regulator and cannot enforce anything — its own material says so and directs readers to their state or territory authority. Each jurisdiction then enacts the model WHS Act and Regulations itself, with local amendments, so the wording binding on you is your state's version rather than the model text.

Victoria is the standing exception. It never harmonised, and runs under its own Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 with its own regulator guidance. A page saying "under Australian WHS law" usually means the harmonised model, which is most of the country but not all of it.

What we checked for this silo was Safe Work Australia's national pages, plus two model Codes read through SafeWork NSW's hosted copies. We did not read every jurisdiction's enactment line by line, so where a detail matters, your own regulator's version is the one to read.

What the frame actually decides on a warehouse floor

Once the duties are clear, most warehouse safety questions collapse into one question: what is reasonably practicable here. That is the work the risk management process does, and an approved Code of Practice is the benchmark a regulator will measure the answer against.

The hazard categories sit underneath that. The manual tasks at a pick face, the plant moving around the floor, noise and the point at which hearing tests are triggered — each is a defined category with its own regulator document, not a general feeling that something looks risky.

Racking shows the frame working. No clause names racking and sets an interval. There is a general duty that plant and structures be without risks so far as is reasonably practicable, plus the mechanism regulators point businesses toward for meeting it — which is why who carries out the inspection matters more than a date on a calendar. The hardware around it sits under rack protection and safety equipment, and the documents behind that under the standards reference.

Common questions

Who is the PCBU in a leased warehouse?: PCBU is a role rather than a title. The business conducting the operation is one; a labour hire provider, a contractor or a client storing goods may hold duties too, depending on the arrangement. Which describes your situation turns on your contracts and how the site runs, and your regulator can point you at the right test.
Does a worker taking care of themselves reduce the business's duty?: No. The duties operate at the same time rather than passing between parties. A worker's failure to follow an instruction does not remove the PCBU's primary duty.
Is Safe Work Australia my regulator?: No. It develops the model WHS laws and publishes the model Codes of Practice. Its own material states that it is not a regulator and cannot advise you about work health and safety issues at your workplace, and points readers to their state or territory authority.
Does the same WHS law apply everywhere in Australia?: Close to it, with one clear exception. Most jurisdictions enact their own version of the model WHS Act and Regulations, so the detail can differ. Victoria did not harmonise and operates under its Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 instead.

Sources

Safe Work Australia — Duties under WHS laws — The PCBU primary duty, the officer due-diligence duty and the worker reasonable-care duty, in Safe Work Australia's own wording. Retrieved 2026-08-24.
Safe Work Australia — Identify, assess and control hazards — Sets out the risk management steps, and states that the assessment step may not be needed where hazards, risks and controls are well known. Retrieved 2026-08-24.

Part of our guide to warehouse hazards and WHS duties.