Reasonably Practicable: How Australian Courts Decide Criminal Responsibility After Workplace Harm

This audiobook is narrated by a digital voice.

“Reasonably practicable” is the most important phrase in modern work health and safety law, and the most misunderstood.

Used daily by regulators, lawyers, executives, and safety professionals, the term is often treated as a shield: something invoked after harm has occurred to justify inaction, cost-cutting, or silence. In reality, it is meant to be a test of foresight, decision-making, and moral responsibility, applied before someone is injured or killed.

This book strips the concept back to its legal foundations and exposes how it is routinely diluted, misapplied, or weaponised inside organisations. Drawing on legislation, case law, enforcement practice, and real-world examples, Reasonably Practicable examines how risk is assessed, how decisions are documented, and how hindsight reshapes accountability after an incident.

Rather than offering compliance checklists or comforting slogans, this book asks harder questions:

Who decides what was “reasonably practicable”?

At what point does cost become an excuse?

And how often does the phrase mask a failure of leadership rather than a genuine balance of risk?

Written for leaders, safety professionals, investigators, and regulators, Reasonably Practicable challenges readers to confront the gap between what the law requires and what organisations choose to do, before that gap becomes fatal.