Category: Government

In line with recommendations made in the 2005 Productivity Commission’s review of workers compensation and occupational health and safety, the Commonwealth Government have introduced legislation that would remove cover for injuries received during journeys to and from work and during authorised recess breaks (lunchtimes).

It is argued that as the employer has little or no control over the circumstances under which the employee travels to and from work and cannot direct the actions and activities of employees during lunchtimes then they should not be liable for any injuries that might be suffered.

A number of states and territories have already introduced these provisions over recent years and whilst there is wide spread support generally from employers there is also strong opposition to the changes from unions and other interest groups claiming that the journey is only undertaken because of work and therefore should be covered.

Other changes proposed will see the connection with work to justify a compensation claim raised from ‘Material’ to ‘Significant’, which on the surface appears to be a bit of semantics but underneath will make it much tougher to claim injury or illness, particularly in relation to stress or psychological claims.

This is an issue over which there will be much debate in coming months.

One of the greatest complaints of businesses that operate across state and territory borders is the complexity of differing requirements for workers compensation and Occupational Health and Safety.

The Federal Government have used pressure from many of the large organisations that fit into this situation to allow more companies to opt into the Commonwealth’s workers compensation scheme (Comcare) as a self insurer as a means of escaping this confusion. At the same time, the Commonwealth and passed amendments to legislation to allow businesses that successfully make this change to be covered by the Commonwealth’s OHS Legislation, thus completely extricating them from compliance with differing legislative controls from one state or territory to the next.

To combat this potential drain of large business from the state and territory based workers compensation schemes and occupational health and safety regimes, the state and territory governments have formed a group (without the Commonwealth’s involvement) that is looking at and moving towards making some of the basic provisions of both workers compensation and occupational health and safety the same no matter what the location.

This appears to be squarely aimed at negating the attraction of the Commonwealth’s ‘one stop shop’ approach and keep businesses with the state and territory frameworks.