Elise Archer,Attorney-General
The Tasmanian Liberal Government is committed to fair and appropriate compensation to injured workers and providing a fair, affordable, efficient and effective rehabilitation and compensation scheme.
Consultation on proposed improvements to the Workers Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988 (the Act) is now available for public comment.
The changes will implement recommendations from two separate reviews coordinated by the WorkCover Tasmania Board (the Board), which recommended legislative changes to the Act.
The proposed amendments will ensure that employees of the Bushfire Risk Unit of the Tasmanian Fire Service are entitled to the presumption that when a fire-fighter meeting relevant criteria is diagnosed with a specified cancer, it is presumed in the absence of evidence to the contrary, that fire-fighting was a substantial contributing factor to the disease.
This is the same presumption which is provided under the Act as other Tasmanian fire-fighters.
The proposed changes will also increase the duration that weekly compensation payments will be made to older workers who are injured.
Additionally, in cases where the injury occurs when the worker is two years from the pension age, or older than that age, entitlements to weekly payments will continue for two years from the date of the injury.
The proposed changes will also correct an error whereby the current provision fails to refer to workers who are injured when they are older than their pension age.
Members of the public can make a submission via the Department of Justice Community Consultations website at https://www.justice.tas.gov.au/community-consultation. Submissions close on 11 April 2022.
