EXPLANATORY STATEMENT

 

Select Legislative Instrument 2008 No. 126

 

Issued by the authority of the

Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations

 

Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988

 

Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Regulations 2008 (No. 2)

(the Regulations)

 

 

The Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988 (the Act) establishes a rehabilitation and workers’ compensation scheme for employees of the Commonwealth public sector and certain private sector corporations. All private sector corporations and certain Commonwealth authorities are licensees under the Act.

Section 122 of the Act provides that the Governor-General may make regulations prescribing matters required or permitted by the Act to be prescribed or necessary or convenient to be prescribed for carrying out or giving effect to the Act.

Section 8 of the SRC Act deals with the calculation of normal weekly earnings (NWE) for employees as defined under section 5 of the Act. NWE is the average number of hours (including overtime) worked in a week by the employee for the purpose of calculating any payments to be made to the employee by Comcare.

Subsection 8(9F) provides for a current employee’s NWE to be updated by reference to a prescribed index, where the NWE cannot otherwise be updated under the other provisions of section 8. Subsection 8(9G) provides that the regulations may specify the manner in which the increase is calculated by reference to the prescribed index.

 

The purpose of the amending Regulations is to prescribe the Wage Price Index for calculating annual increases in NWE under subsection 8(9F). The amending Regulations also prescribe the formula to be used in calculating further increases in NWE under subsection 8(9G).

 

The Regulations also replace current references to ‘Wage Cost Index’ with ‘Wage Price Index’ in line with the naming arrangements adopted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. This ensures that the same indexation factor is applied to an injured person who continues in employment as is applied to an injured person who ceases employment with the Commonwealth (i.e. the ‘Wage Price Index’).

 

An assessment was made under guidelines issued by the Office of Best Practice Regulation that a Regulation Impact Statement was not required for the Regulations.

 

Specific consultation in relation to the Regulations was not undertaken on the basis that they merely implement specific amendments to the SRC Act, which were themselves the subject of consultation.

 

The Act specifies no other conditions that needed to be satisfied before the power to make these Regulations is exercised.

 

The Regulations are a legislative instrument for the purposes of the Legislative Instruments Act 2003.

 

The Regulations commence on the day after their registration on the Federal Register of Legislative Instruments.