This page is an educational summary for professionals working with AI. It is not the law and not legal advice. Always work from the current authoritative text linked below.
What does section 5A do?
Section 5A defines injury for the Commonwealth scheme. Subsection 5A(1) has three limbs: a disease; a physical or mental injury (other than a disease) arising out of, or in the course of, the employee's employment; and an aggravation of such an injury. Its closing words then exclude a disease, injury or aggravation suffered as a result of reasonable administrative action taken in a reasonable manner in respect of the employee's employment. Read the current compilation on the Federal Register of Legislation.
Who does it bind?
Every determining authority applying the SRC Act: Comcare and self-insured licensees, plus delegates drafting liability determinations and reviewers testing them. Section 4 routes the Act's injury definition here.
What do practitioners get wrong?
Two misreadings. First, hunting for the reasonable administrative action test in section 14: it is not there; the carve-out sits in the closing words of subsection 5A(1). Second, treating subsection 5A(2) as a factors test. It is a non-exhaustive examples list: without limiting subsection 5A(1), reasonable administrative action is taken to include reasonable appraisals, counselling, suspension and disciplinary action, and anything reasonable done in connection with them.
Where does AI use touch it?
Psychological injury determinations turn on this provision, and AI-assisted drafting must keep the two-step structure intact: definition first, carve-out second. See AI and the reasonable administrative action exclusion and the determination evidence check skill file.
Bottom line
Section 5A is the gateway definition for liability. The reasonable administrative action carve-out lives here, not in section 14, and subsection 5A(2) gives examples, not a checklist. Get the structure right before drafting.
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