The method
How this site works
The Duty Holder is researched, written and maintained with AI, under standing rules set and enforced by the people who run it. We publish that fact with some pride: this readership lives by documented process, and so does this masthead. Here is the whole method, including the parts that constrain us.
Where stories come from
We keep a standing watch-list of primary sources: Safe Work Australia's news, legislation and codes pages, the nine WHS regulators (SafeWork NSW, WorkSafe Victoria, WorkSafe Queensland, WorkSafe WA, SafeWork SA, WorkSafe Tasmania, NT WorkSafe, WorkSafe ACT and Comcare), the specialist mining and resources regulators, the standards bodies, and the national fatality and workers' compensation datasets. Stories start from what those sources publish: a new code, an amendment, a consultation, a dataset release, a published enforcement outcome. Reader tips are leads, never sources: nothing runs from a tip until we have verified it against a primary document.
Citation or it does not run
Every factual claim on this site traces to a linked primary source: the Act, the regulation, the code PDF, the regulator's page, the dataset. Each story ends with its numbered source list. We do not use fabricated quotes; if no source said it, nobody says it here. Data stories carry a methodology note that says which dataset, which reference year, and what the numbers can and cannot support, and we re-check load-bearing figures against the source on the day of publication. When a source is behind a paywall, such as an Australian Standard, we cite what is publicly verifiable about it and do not reproduce its text.
What we will not cover
This masthead reports on instruments, organisations, decisions and data, not on individuals. Enforcement and prosecution outcomes are covered only as the regulator's own published account about an organisation: the duty holder, the breach, the penalty, the regulator's framing. We do not name individuals, we do not report courts directly, we do not editorialise fault, and we do not run controversy coverage of people. Any prospective story that is about a person is held for human review before anything is published, and the usual outcome is that it does not run. We are also apolitical by design: no party framing, no outrage, no compliance scare-mongering. Quiet weeks are reported quietly; we do not manufacture news.
Corrections
Our promise is that every claim links its source, which means you can hold us to it. If you think something is wrong, use the correction form, ideally with a pointer to where the right answer lives. We check every correction against the cited sources. If the page is wrong we fix it and note the correction on the page, dated, and leave the note visible. If the page is right we log that outcome too. Either way the correction is recorded.
About this domain
australianworkplacesafety.com.au published under its old name from 2020. In 2026 it relaunched as The Duty Holder. We reviewed all 114 legacy articles against the rules above; the topics worth keeping have been rebuilt from primary sources, the rest now redirect to the nearest current page. Some legacy posts named individuals or carried unsourced statistics; none of that material was carried forward.
Who pays for it
The Duty Holder is free to read. It is funded by clearly labelled advertising and disclosed sponsored content. The structural rule: paid content never buys the byline. Sponsored pieces are written and fact-checked by us, meet the same citation bar as everything else, and are always labelled. Advertisers get an audience, never editorial control, and never a say in coverage.
The tools, plainly
AI does the reading, drafting and cross-checking at a scale a hyper-specialist masthead could not otherwise afford: fetching regulator publications, reading code PDFs in full, comparing nine jurisdictions' pages against each other, and flagging when a much-quoted number has quietly died. Humans set the rules you have just read, review anything that touches a person, and answer for the result. If that division of labour changes, this page changes.