Internal Audits That Drive Culture, Not Just Compliance: Rethinking ISO 27001 and ISO 45001 in the Australian Context
In Australia, with regard to ISO 27001 (information security) and ISO 45001 (occupational health and safety) audits, compliance is maturing, and an internal audit is often viewed as mere admin work — a checklist activity done in preparation for an external audit. This perspective ignores the beneficial impact internal audits can bring, especially when there is a deliberate, integrated, and holistic methodology towards their execution.
Organisations that conduct internal audits as standalone technical processes risk their internal audits being labelled as processes with little to no impact. This significantly impacts the transformation of the organisational culture, the ownership that spans across functions, and the resilience woven across the two risk domains of cybersecurity and workplace safety.
Let’s shift the narrative around internal audits ISO 27001 and ISO 45001, treating them not as compliance exercises, but as tools for proactive organisational intelligence, behaviour shift, and change accountability at all leadership levels.
Audit Fatigue is Real — But It’s Self-Inflicted
With multiple certifications, audit fatigue is significantly prevalent in Australian businesses. For safety managers and IT teams, internal audits feel like paperwork-dense exercises with little impact to the bottom line. Often the case, this is caused by the rigid and outdated frameworks that have checklists created for them, rather than audits being designed based on the strategic goals for the business.
To break the cycle, the internal audit 27001 process should go beyond log verification and assess if staff are adhering to policies such as the clean desk policy and if third party risks are being evaluated post-contract renewals.
Similarly, internal audit iso 45001 should look beyond procedural documentation and focus on the perception of on-site workers regarding hazard controls, Do they trust the system in place? Are the reporting pathways known to them? Are near misses being considered for learning or disregarded?
To achieve this, workers should be challenged instead of provided evidence.
Audits 27001 and 45001 should intermingle and break down silos
For the most part, iso 27001 and iso 45001 audits have been done separately and allocated to different groups with different guidelines. this fragmented way of working ignores the fact that domains of risk are integrating.
With the emergence of smart factories, remote work, and wearable safety devices, the lines between information security and physical safety have blurred. Think of the following,
Malware that infects critical safety control systems.
Inadequate control of access that permits access to restricted areas.
Access of cloud stored health data without appropriate governance.
Within this framework, integrated internal audits, or at the very least shared learnings between audit programs, are crucial. For Australian businesses, the priorities should be training the right auditors who can effectively ask risk-based questions that traverse the digital-physical divide framed around operational resilience.
Utilizing Internal Audit as a Leadership Tool
The internal audit function often resides with compliance and technical personnel. For audits to have a meaningful impact, they need to be visible at the leadership level. Incident response capabilities and contractor onboarding are not mere process flaws; they are incident response capabilities and contractor onboarding are not mere process flaws; they are strategic threats to the organization.
Australian boards and executive teams need to fundamentally change their perception and stop treating internal audits as a cost center. Use internal audits to:
Monitor and track maturity over time and not just pass fail outcomes
Unearth persistent issues that may lead to breaching regulations, injurious outcomes, or financial penalties
Evaluate performance relative to competitors and peers in the industry and set targets internally
Encourage and nurture trust within the organization with a culture of openness and continuous learning
This approach demands a shift to audit visualization frameworks and techniques; moving away from presenting dense and technical documents. Audit reports should illustrate risk, accountability, and opportunity while presenting adaptive insights focused on business outcomes.
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From an Annual Event to Ongoing Intelligence
For ISO 27001 and ISO 45001 Standard Compliance, Internal Audits are typically done once and in some cases twice a year. Risk, however, does not adhere to a 12 month timeframe. In logistics, healthcare, and critical infrastructure, the risk environment changes quite a bit.
An example would be an Australian progressive approach to Continuous Auditing, a blend of real-time risk assessment and periodic intensive audit examinations, including:
Monthly review of incident report investigations and simulated phishing test evaluations
Assessment of control implementation compliance (i.e., lock-out, tag-out or password policy) on a quarterly basis
Respondent’s system auto-alerts based on training participation, near miss report submission, and various other system triggers
This approach enables the organization to remain responsive, security posture informed, and agile. Also, audit ready not due to external compliance pressure, but needing the business intelligence to safely and securely conduct operations.
Internal Audits as Signals of Culture
Cultural impact of internal audits is often the most ignored. Change Signals an Audit Process focuses on an Organizational Culture Valuing Signals. If the audit lacks depth and is punitive in nature, surface-level, staff are conditioned to disguise issues and not report. Audits lacking trust are inquiry led. If an audit is trust-centered and focuses on improvement, it cultivates institution-wide trust and engagement.
For both ISO 27001 and ISO 45001, Australian organisations must acknowledge internal audits as cultural interventions — as moments when expectations are clarified, behaviours are reinforced, and accountability is exemplified.
Skilled auditors are also leadership buy-in, a commitment to learn from what is found, and a commitment to learn from what is found, and not just fix it.
Conclusion: Rethinking Internal Audits for a Risk-Ready Australia
Under ISO 27001 and ISO 45001, internal audits are not only compliance exercises. Rather, they serve as levers for business transformation. Purposefully designed audits can also dismantle silos, strategically inform, incidentally prevent, and culturally shape.
With Australian organisations facing mounting regulatory requirements, evolving digital risks, and workforce challenges, internal audit is far from a formality. It is high time for leadership. The sooner we reclaim it for this purpose, the more resilient our workplaces will be.
