NSW has passed a law on algorithms that allocate work. It is not in force yet, and the records it will call for are already clear

On 21 October, Mibo and MinterEllison hosted a panel breakfast titled The Algorithm on the Worksite: Psychosocial Safety, Data and AI. The discussion covered AI and algorithmic decision-making in workforce planning, performance management and monitoring, and how leaders can innovate while protecting psychosocial safety and consulting employees. In New South Wales there is already a law behind that conversation, and it is worth knowing where it stands. The Work Health and Safety Amendment (Digital Work Systems) Act 2026 passed the NSW Parliament in February 2026. SafeWork NSW describes a digital work system as an algorithm, artificial intelligence, automation or online platform. According to SafeWork NSW, the Act does three things. It clarifies that a business's existing primary duty of care applies to managing risks from the use of digital work systems. It adds a new duty requiring businesses to consider whether the health and safety of workers is put at risk by the allocation of work by a digital work system. And it gives WHS entry permit holders a new power to require reasonable assistance to access and inspect a digital work system relevant to a suspected contravention. Law firm summaries of the Act describe the new duty as asking the business to consider four kinds of risk from work allocated by a digital system: excessive or unreasonable workloads, excessive or unreasonable performance metrics, excessive or unreasonable monitoring or surveillance, and discriminatory practices or decision-making. We have not been able to read the enacted section itself, so check the wording on the NSW legislation website before relying on the detail above. Most of the Act has not commenced. SafeWork NSW says the provisions allowing it to develop guidelines have started, and that the remaining provisions commence on a date or dates still to be announced by the NSW Government. The entry permit power cannot start earlier than one month after the guidelines are published, and SafeWork NSW is consulting in stages before it publishes them. So there is no date to plan around, and a business is not breaching the new section today. But the existing primary duty and the Managing Psychosocial Hazards at Work Code of Practice, which became an enforceable benchmark in NSW on 1 July 2026, already apply. This blog covered the Safe Work Australia series on AI and digital tools as a psychosocial hazard category earlier. The NSW Act adds a legal anchor for one specific part of it, the systems that decide who does what work, when and how fast. The rostering, dispatch and task allocation tools that many employers treat as an operations purchase are the ones in scope. The practical question is what you could show if someone asked. A short record per system is usually enough: what the system allocates and to whom; what the business considered about workload, metrics, monitoring and fairness before it went live; which workers were consulted and what they raised; who owns the system's settings and when they were last reviewed. The Code of Practice already expects consultation on new technology and new systems of work, so none of this is a new kind of record. It is the same hazard, control, owner and review date record, applied to a category many registers do not yet list. Outside NSW the Act does not apply, and other jurisdictions have not legislated in the same way. The Model Code position on consultation and risk management is unchanged. An employer with sites in several states may still find it easier to keep one record for all of them.