What it covers
The Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988 (Cth) is the legislation behind the Commonwealth workers compensation scheme. It sets out when compensation is payable, who decides, and on what evidence. The full text is on the Federal Register of Legislation.
Key provisions practitioners work with daily:
- Section 5A defines "injury" and carves out conditions suffered as a result of reasonable administrative action taken in a reasonable manner. This is the reasonable administrative action exclusion that frequently determines psychological claims.
- Section 5B defines "disease", which turns on whether the employment contributed to a significant degree to the ailment or its aggravation.
- Section 14 sets out the liability of Comcare to pay compensation in respect of an injury, subject to the rest of the Act.
The Act also covers incapacity and the calculation of weekly compensation, medical and treatment expenses, permanent impairment, and rehabilitation obligations. Comcare maintains a plain-language overview on its SRC Act page.
Who it applies to
The scheme covers employees of the Australian Government and its agencies, plus the staff of private corporations that hold a self-insurance licence under the Act. Comcare administers claims for many Commonwealth agencies, while licensed self-insurers determine their own. State workers compensation schemes operate under separate legislation and do not use the SRC Act, so the first question on any claim is which scheme applies. Comcare sets out the claims process on its workers compensation claims page.
How decisions and reviews work
Determinations are made by authorised decision-makers, called delegates, applying the Act to the evidence. A claimant who disagrees can seek reconsideration of the determination, and if still dissatisfied, apply to the Administrative Review Tribunal. The ART replaced the Administrative Appeals Tribunal in October 2024 and reviews Commonwealth workers compensation decisions on the merits. See the ART's workers compensation review page for the process and timeframes.
Where AI fits
AI tools can support claims work without making the decision. Useful, lower-risk applications include summarising medical reports, drafting plain-English explanations, surfacing relevant sections of the Act, and structuring evidence against the statutory tests. The constraints matter as much as the use cases:
- The determination must be made by the authorised decision-maker, not the tool. AI output is an input, never the decision.
- A human must review every AI-assisted draft before it informs an outcome.
- Claimant data must be de-identified before it goes into any general AI system, because claim files contain sensitive personal and medical information.
Used this way, AI shortens drafting and analysis time while the decision-maker keeps full ownership of the reasoning and the result.
What practitioners should do
Anchor every determination to the specific provision and the evidence, not to a general sense of the merits. For psychological claims, work the section 5A reasonable administrative action question carefully, because that is where many determinations turn. Keep a clear audit trail of what AI assisted with and what the delegate decided. Before adopting any AI workflow, confirm it meets your organisation's privacy, security, and records obligations, and that de-identification happens before, not after, data reaches the tool.
TheAICommand. Intelligence, At Your Command.*
TheAICommand. Intelligence, At Your Command.