When prevention works, it can start to feel... unnecessary.
Your contracts and terms of business are in good shape.
Workforce policies and procedures are clear and communicated effectively.
WHS and injury management systems are active and reliable.
You’ve got trusted advice, steady frameworks, and limited, if any, fires to put out.
So, it’s easy to start questioning:
Do we still need to invest in this?
Has the risk passed?
Was it even there to begin with?
But that’s the paradox of prevention:
When it’s doing its job, it gets quiet.
Fewer incidents. Fewer disputes. Less drama.
And that’s when the risk of pulling back creeps in, not because the systems aren’t working, but because everything feels fine.
What can we learn from the research?
Research doesn’t always sound alarm bells, but it does help us spot patterns in behaviour we might otherwise overlook.
From CoreData’s 2024 study of post-Royal Commission reforms, we learn that when compliance changes become embedded, they can start to feel less significant. The work gets done, systems are in place — and over time, they fade into the background.
“Once practices made the behavioural change, it became normal.”
— Andrew Inwood, CoreData
That normality isn’t inherently risky, but it can make it easier for businesses to assume “we’re fine now” and unintentionally deprioritise the very practices that made them stable in the first place.
APRA’s 2022 Risk Culture Survey adds a sharper warning. It found that some institutions equated a lack of recent problems with strong culture, even though that confidence may not have reflected reality.
“Many institutions had become complacent, believing their risk culture was sound due to a lack of recent incidents.”
— APRA, 2022
What we can take from this is clear:
When systems become routine, they can stop feeling urgent.
When incidents are low, the temptation to pull back increases.
And when things feel calm, some businesses take that as a sign to scale down, instead of seeing it as proof that their efforts are working.
But quiet doesn’t mean the risk is gone.
It means it’s being managed… or you’ve just been lucky.
So, before you wind anything back, ask yourself — how do you stay open-minded when everything seems fine?
🔸 Get curious.
If something were to go wrong, what would it be?
🔸 Talk to others.
What challenges are your peers seeing? What’s catching them off guard?
🔸 Pay attention to failures.
When something unravels in another business, could that happen here?
🔸 Reflect honestly.
Are things running smoothly because of good systems… or just good luck?
🔸 And finally — consider the cost.
If the systems and advice you’ve invested in are doing their job quietly…
what might it cost you to pull back now?
Article by Amy Towers, Director – WHS, People & Compliance – helping businesses navigate compliance with confidence.