NSW Workplace Bullying Orders and Damages: What Changed

Correction, 8 September 2026: an earlier version of this article described a “Work Health and Safety Amendment (Workplace Bullying) Bill 2026” with a tiered fine structure topping out at $99,432. No such bill exists. This article has been rewritten around the law that was actually made. We are sorry for the error.

The real reform is the Industrial Relations and Other Legislation Amendment (Workplace Protections) Act 2025 (NSW), passed by the NSW Parliament in June 2025. It amends both the Industrial Relations Act 1996 (NSW) and the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (NSW).

The part that matters most to a bullied worker commenced on 13 October 2025: the NSW Industrial Relations Commission now has a dedicated anti-bullying and sexual harassment jurisdiction. More than 400,000 NSW workers gained access to it on day one.

What the IRC can now do:

• make an order to stop the bullying or sexual harassment
• award damages of up to $100,000 to the affected worker
• order a public apology
• order the employer to take specified actions to stop the conduct

The damages power is the headline. NSW is the first jurisdiction in Australia to let a tribunal award money for workplace bullying alongside a stop order. The Fair Work Commission has never been able to do that — its stop-bullying jurisdiction is purely forward-looking.

Damages can also be ordered against an individual, not only the employer, as long as that person was interacting with the worker through their employment. The bully can personally be on the hook.

This is the part people get wrong, so read it carefully before you lodge anything.

The NSW IRC jurisdiction exists to fill a gap. It covers workers who are not captured by the federal system under the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth). In practice that means:

• NSW public sector employees — hospitals, schools, agencies
• Local government employees — council workers
• Workers employed by unincorporated entities — sole traders and partnerships, rather than Pty Ltd companies

If you work for a Pty Ltd company in NSW, you are a national system employee and your bullying pathway is still the Fair Work Commission under Part 6-4B of the Fair Work Act. The NSW jurisdiction is not open to you.

That distinction turns on who employs you, not where you work. A nurse in a NSW public hospital is covered by the new NSW jurisdiction; a nurse in a private hospital run by a company is not. A council road crew is covered; a contractor engaged by a Pty Ltd civil firm doing the same road is not.

If you are not sure which side of the line you sit on, look at your payslip and your contract for the employing entity. “Pty Ltd” or “Ltd” almost always means the federal system.

The Act does attach penalties, but they work differently from the fines described in the earlier version of this article. They are not fines for bullying itself. They are penalties for contravening an order the Commission has already made.

• Individual who contravenes a bullying or harassment order: up to $18,870
• Employer who contravenes a bullying or harassment order: up to $93,900

So the sequence matters. A worker applies, the Commission makes a stop order (and may award damages), and only if that order is then breached does the penalty exposure arise. There is no standalone offence of “failing to prevent workplace bullying” carrying an automatic fine.

Separately, the general WHS duty still applies. Under the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (NSW), a person conducting a business or undertaking must eliminate or minimise psychosocial risks so far as is reasonably practicable, and bullying is a psychosocial hazard. SafeWork NSW can issue improvement and prohibition notices and, in serious cases, prosecute under the existing WHS offence categories. That pathway predates these reforms and is unchanged by them.

Australia already had a workplace bullying remedy through the Fair Work Commission. The NSW jurisdiction is not a replacement — for most private-sector workers the FWC remains the only option — but the two work differently.

Fair Work Commission stop-bullying orders (Part 6-4B, Fair Work Act 2009)

• Available to national system employees, which is most private-sector workers
• Forward-looking only: the Commission can order the behaviour to stop
• No compensation or damages
• You must still be employed in the workplace where the bullying occurred — jurisdiction is lost if you resign
• Requires repeated unreasonable behaviour creating a risk to health and safety

NSW IRC anti-bullying and sexual harassment jurisdiction (from 13 October 2025)

• Available to NSW public sector, local government and unincorporated-entity workers
• Stop orders, plus damages up to $100,000
• Public apology orders and orders requiring specified employer action
• Damages can be awarded against an individual, not just the employer
• Covers sexual harassment as well as bullying, in one jurisdiction

The practical difference for a covered worker is that money is on the table. Under the FWC pathway, a worker who has been driven out of a job has no remedy through the stop-bullying jurisdiction at all, because the Commission loses jurisdiction once they leave. The NSW damages power is a genuine change in what a bullied worker can walk away with.

Both jurisdictions use the same test, so this part has not changed.

Workplace bullying is repeated, unreasonable behaviour directed towards a worker or group of workers that creates a risk to health and safety.

Breaking that down:

• Repeated: A single incident is usually not bullying, no matter how unpleasant. The behaviour must be ongoing or part of a pattern. One heated argument over a project deadline is not bullying. Three months of being undermined in team meetings is.
• Unreasonable behaviour: Conduct that a reasonable person, taking into account the circumstances, would see as unreasonable. It includes verbal abuse, intimidation, humiliation, public criticism, exclusion, setting impossible deadlines, withholding information needed to do the job, and sabotaging someone's work.
• Directed at a worker or workers: Either individually or as part of a group.
• Risk to health and safety: This includes psychological injury, not just physical. Anxiety, depression and stress-related illness all count.

What is NOT workplace bullying:

• Reasonable management action, carried out in a reasonable way. This is the big carve-out. Performance managing someone, giving critical feedback, allocating work, disciplining for misconduct — all legitimate even if the employee finds them stressful
• A single incident of conflict, disagreement or frustration
• Differences of opinion or constructive criticism
• Consequences of genuine operational decisions such as restructures and role changes

The “reasonable management action” defence is where most bullying cases are won and lost. Employers will almost always argue the conduct complained of was reasonable management action. The question is whether the manner of that action was reasonable, not just whether the action itself was within management's rights. A manager who has the right to performance manage someone, but does so through public humiliation, loud outbursts and sarcastic emails, is not engaged in reasonable management action.

Step 1: Work out which system you are in. Check the employing entity on your contract and payslip. NSW public sector, council or an unincorporated employer means the NSW Industrial Relations Commission. A Pty Ltd employer means the Fair Work Commission.

Step 2: Document everything. Dates, times, what was said, who witnessed it, what you did in response, and the effect on you. Keep emails and messages. Note GP visits, time off and any medication — a bullying claim turns on the risk to health and safety, and contemporaneous medical records carry weight.

Step 3: Raise it internally where it is safe to do so. Use your employer's bullying or grievance policy. If the bully is your manager, or you have already raised it and been ignored, you do not have to keep going in circles internally before applying.

Step 4: Lodge the application. NSW IRC applications are made on the Commission's own forms through irc.nsw.gov.au. Fair Work Commission stop-bullying applications are made on Form F72 through fwc.gov.au. Both are free to lodge.

Step 5: Report the safety risk as well. A bullying application and a WHS complaint are separate things and you can do both. SafeWork NSW takes psychosocial hazard reports on 13 10 50, and can inspect and issue notices regardless of whether you have a tribunal application on foot.

One timing point worth knowing: if the bullying has already led to your dismissal or resignation, there may be a 21-day clock running on an unfair dismissal or general protections application to the Fair Work Commission. That deadline is short and it runs from the day the dismissal took effect. Do not let a bullying claim distract you from it.

The NSW reforms sharpen an obligation that already existed rather than creating one from nothing. Under the WHS Act, psychosocial hazards — including bullying — have to be eliminated or minimised so far as is reasonably practicable, and that duty has applied since the psychosocial regulations came in.

What is worth doing:

• Have a written bullying and harassment policy that defines the conduct, sets out how to report it, describes the investigation process, names who is responsible, and states the consequences.
• Give people more than one way to report. A pathway that requires the worker to complain to the person bullying them is not a pathway.
• Train managers specifically on recognising and responding to bullying. Generic respect-at-work training on its own tends not to change manager behaviour.
• Be able to investigate promptly. That means internal capability, an external investigator on call, or both.
• Keep records of complaints, investigations and outcomes. If a regulator or the Commission asks what you did, the file is the answer.
• Assess psychosocial risk the way you assess physical risk — identify hazards, consult workers, control them, review. That is what the WHS duty actually requires.

For NSW public sector and local government employers specifically, the damages exposure is new. A stop order costs you a change in behaviour; a $100,000 damages award plus a public apology order is a different conversation with your board.