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Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988
1 After subsection 7 (7)
Insert:
(8) If an employee:
(a) suffers a disease mentioned in the following table; and
(b) before the disease was sustained, was employed as a firefighter for the qualifying period mentioned for that disease; and
(c) was exposed to the hazards of a fire scene during that period; and
(d) in the case of a cancer of a kind covered by item 13 of the following table—satisfies the conditions (if any) prescribed for such a cancer;
the employment is, for the purposes of this Act, taken to have contributed, to a significant degree, to the contraction of the disease, unless the contrary is established.
|
Item |
Disease |
Qualifying period |
|
1 |
Primary site brain cancer |
5 years |
|
2 |
Primary site bladder cancer |
|
|
3 |
Primary site kidney cancer |
15 years |
|
4 |
Primary non-Hodgkins lymphoma |
15 years |
|
5 |
Primary leukemia |
5 years |
|
6 |
Primary site breast cancer |
10 years |
|
7 |
Primary site testicular cancer |
10 years |
|
8 |
Multiple myeloma |
15 years |
|
9 |
Primary site prostate cancer |
15 years |
|
10 |
Primary site ureter cancer |
15 years |
|
11 |
Primary site colorectal cancer |
15 years |
|
12 |
Primary site oesophageal cancer |
25 years
|
|
13 |
A cancer of a kind prescribed for this table |
The period prescribed for such a cancer |
(9) For the purposes of subsection (8):
(a) an employee is taken to have been employed as a firefighter if firefighting duties made up a substantial portion of his or her duties; and
(b) an employee who was employed as a firefighter for 2 or more periods that add up to the qualifying period is taken to have been so employed for the qualifying period; and
(c) an employee is taken to have been employed as a firefighter only if he or she was (disregarding the effect of any declarations under subsection 5(15)) employed as a firefighter by the Commonwealth, a Commonwealth authority or a licensed corporation.
(10) Subsection (8) does not limit, and is not limited by, subsections (1) and (2).
2 Review of amendment
(1) The Minister must cause an independent review of the operation of the amendment made by item 1 to be undertaken and completed by 31 December 2013.
(2) The person who undertakes the review must give the Minister a written report of the review.
(3) The report must be published on the Department’s website.
3 Application
The amendment made by item 1 applies in relation to a disease that an employee sustains on or after 4 July 2011.
|
(137/11) |