Policy document number: 1274055 Version: 7 Last updated: 16 August 2026
1. Overview
1.1 At a glance
Sydney Water's Safety, Health and Wellbeing policy commits to providing a physically and psychosocially safe, healthy, and supportive environment for all workers and stakeholders.
The policy ensures compliance with the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (NSW) and Work Health and Safety Regulations 2025 (NSW), emphasises systematic risk management including psychosocial risks, mandates consultation and participation and promotes prompt incident notification.
1.2 Scope
This policy applies to all workers including contractors, visitors, customers, partner agencies and others who may be affected by Sydney Water activities.
1.3 Objective
The safety, health and wellbeing of anyone working on or potentially affected by Sydney Water activities is of paramount importance, fundamental to our business and critical to our success. We aim to create an environment where our people have the autonomy to use their insight, knowledge and expertise to keep themselves, their colleagues, and the community safe, healthy and well.
Any changes to this policy will be subject to consultation with Health and Safety Committees, Health and Safety Representatives, and Union delegates and officials.
1.4 Governance
- Roles and responsibilities for safety, health and wellbeing are defined in Sydney Water's governance framework, WHS management system and supporting procedures.
- Performance against this policy is monitored, reviewed and reported through established governance, assurance and reporting mechanisms.
- Changes to this policy will be subject to consultation with Health and Safety Committees, Health and Safety Representatives, and Union delegates and officials.
2. Policy in detail
Our Commitment:
There is no task so urgent and no service so important that we cannot take the time to do it safely.
Sydney Water are committed to:
- Everyone demonstrating a genuine commitment to safety, actively monitoring safe behaviours and promoting a safety-first culture
- Meeting our statutory obligations and continually moving our organisation from less to more safe through an application of a systematic risk management process
- Recognising the risks posed to workers health and safety by exposure to silica and asbestos and will implement a range of control measures to minimise exposure including health monitoring in accordance with applicable Australian regulations
- Leaders proactively considering and identifying safety hazards to ensure timely mitigation of risk
- Empowering our people to know they are supported to stop work where they deem there to be a risk to health and safety and providing them with the means to report unsafe work practices, unacceptable behaviours, incidents, injuries and illness
- Recognising the efforts and expertise of our employees, contractors, and other partners in working together to prevent work related fatalities, minimise harm and to actively promote safety, health and wellbeing
- Ensuring our people have ongoing and continual access to the information, instruction, training and supervision they need to remain healthy and to work safely
- Consulting with our people, through Health and Safety Representatives, safety committees, safety
- network members, direct engagement, digital platforms, union delegates and officials and other appropriate mechanisms to share lessons learnt and identify ways to reduce safety, health, wellbeing and psychosocial risk
- Supporting escalation and learning from our incidents, and actively ensure that our people are aware that they can speak up without negative consequences to avoid them occurring again whilst encouraging open and honest communication, consultation, engagement, and cooperation to create the best possible solutions for our people
- Establishing objectives, monitor and review safety, health and wellbeing performance and trends to assist in prioritising activities that drive continued improvement of our work, our systems, our working environment, and our equipment, in consultation with our people, Health and Safety Representatives, union delegates and officials.