New data shows a 'national pattern' of harm experienced by employees
Bullying and harassment emerged as the leading cause of psychological personal injury claims in Australia from 2024 to 2025, revealing a "national pattern" of harm that employers need to address.
Internal data from personal injury law firm LHD Lawyers revealed a total of 1,219 psychological personal injury cases over 12 months.
More than a third (34.95%) of the cases reported were linked to bullying and harassment, making it the most prevalent cause of workplace psychological harm.
"The fact that 1,219 workplace psychological injury claims passed through our firm in a single year tells you the scale of what's happening," said LHD Lawyers CEO James Bodel.
"When more than a third of those cases involve bullying and harassment, that's not isolated behaviour, that's a national pattern."
According to the findings, bullying and harassment were the leading causes of psychological personal injury claims in all states except Western Australia and South Australia, where physical assault was the primary cause of claims.
Victoria reported the highest bullying and harassment rate at 49.43%, followed by Queensland (40.91%), New South Wales (39.42%), and the Australian Capital Territory (36.36%).
Other reasons for psychological injury claims
Meanwhile, the second-highest reason for workplace psychological injury claims was physical assault and violence, accounting for 20.26% of the reports. Other reasons include:
- General or non-specific work experiences (12.14%)
- Physical accident or injury (11.81%)
- Traumatic incident or witness event (5.5%)
- Sexual harassment or assault (3.69%)
- Workload or work stress (3.28%)
- Verbal abuse or threats (2.1%)
- Equipment or machinery failure (1.72%)
- Unsafe work conditions or environmental hazards (1.39%)
- Toxic workplace culture (0.98%)
- Allegations, accusations, or investigations (0.49%)
- Management or performance issues (0.49%)
- Customer, client, or patient aggression (0.41%)
- Personal or non-work incident (0.41%)
- Discrimination or racism (0.25%)
- Animal attack or incident (0.08%)
"We released this data because the firms representing injured workers often see what regulators and employers don't," Bodel said.
"Bringing it into the open is the first step toward making Australian workplaces accountable for the harm they're causing."
The findings come as employers in Australia are facing increasing pressure to manage the risk of psychosocial hazards in the workplace.
As of December 2025, all Australian states and territories have psychosocial hazard regulations in force, requiring employers to identify, assess, and control psychosocial risks at work so far as is reasonably practicable.
