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Review of the Accident Compensation Act 1985 (Vic)

12 December 2007

The Victorian Government has announced that it will review the Accident Compensation Act 1985 (Vic) in 2008.
The review will focus on the benefit and premium regime under the Act in comparison to other jurisdictions, as well as ways to reduce administrative and regulatory burdens on employers.
The government has indicated that there will be some scope to consider harmonisation of Victoria’s scheme with other jurisdictions.

On Monday 10 December 2007 Mr Tim Holding, Minister for Finance, TAC and WorkCover, announced that the Accident Compensation Act 1985 (AC Act) will be ‘updated’ in 2008, following a public review by Mr Peter Hanks QC.

The government had previously intimated a review was on the cards as part of its broader policy to review safety and workers’ compensation laws in Victoria, but the timing before Christmas has been a pleasant surprise for many.

Mr Holding indicated that whilst the underlying principles of the Act remain sound, incremental changes to the AC Act over the years have made it ‘unwieldy and unnecessarily complex’. Accordingly, the review will focus on:

the benefit and premium regime when compared to other jurisdictions
ways to ensure the best possible support is provided to injured workers
ways to reduce the administrative and regulatory burden on Victorian businesses
the removal of inoperative, irrelevant and superfluous legislative provisions, and
improving understanding of the accident compensation regime.

Mr Holding stated that there would also be ‘some scope to consider alignment’ with other jurisdictions, where appropriate.

The review comes off the back of significant changes to the state’s occupational health and safety laws and the implementation of a specialist WorkSafe Return to Work Inspectorate which focuses solely on enforcing the return to work provisions of the existing AC Act.

The AC Act has been in operation for over 20 years and many of our clients are excited at the chance to review and update the AC Act particularly as it could potentially mean:

incorporating new injury management techniques / guidelines into the Act
streamlining documentation requirements, allowing employers to focus on good risk management and workplace rehabilitation outcomes
greater incentives for injured workers to engage in workplace rehabilitation, and
harmonisation of some features of the system with other jurisdictions .

The Victorian WorkCover Authority intends to form a stakeholder reference group and submissions will be invited from the public.

Freehills is experienced in a number of Australian jurisdictions and as with the Maxwell Review and the development of the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 (Cth), we will be directly involved in the review. We are happy to assist clients in drafting any submissions they may wish to make in relation to this review of the AC Act.

We will continue to provide an update as developments occur.

This article was written by James Schluter, Solicitor, and Barry Sherriff, Partner, of the Melbourne Employee Relations team.

For more information please contact

Name : Barry Sherriff
Title : Partner
Office : Melbourne
Phone : +61 3 9288 1462
Fax : +61 3 9288 1567
Email : barry.sherriff@freehills.com

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