What this is for
Sections 46 and 48 of the SRC Act put the third party notification duties on the claimant. Section 46 runs seven days from when they first became aware of a claim against a third party, and section 48(2) runs twenty-eight days from the recovery of damages. Nothing the authority does starts either clock, and both notices are addressed to Comcare rather than to a licensee.
That leaves one indicator the authority reliably controls: the mechanism of injury already collected at intake. This is the screen from the Part IV explainer, pulled out as something you can run across an intake cohort. It carries the population rule, the exclusion test, the indicator list, the evidence contract, the two adjudication points and the record-keeping line.
How to use it
Run it across a defined intake cohort, not file by file, and re-run it on the same rule so the results are comparable month to month. Sections 1 to 4 are machine work and they end at a quoted indicator. Section 5 is where a person takes over.
De-identify at extract time and use the canonical placeholders throughout: [CLAIMANT_NAME], [CLAIM_NUMBER], [INJURY_DATE], [TREATING_PRACTITIONER], [CONDITION]. Keep the re-identification key in the controlled claim system.
Nothing in this screen is a determination, nothing in it produces one, and a flag changes no entitlement.
The artefact
Section 1: the population rule
Include every claim accepted or under assessment in the period, with an incident narrative or mechanism of injury field present.
Record for each: [CLAIM_NUMBER], [INJURY_DATE], the date of intake, and which narrative documents were available to the screen.
Define the population as a rule you can re-run and reproduce. Not a manager's shortlist. Not the files someone already suspects.
Where a document is absent, record it as absent. A screen that could not read the incident report has not returned a nil result, it has returned an incomplete one.
Section 2: the exclusion test
Sections 46, 50 and 51 each exclude the same set of parties. A third party, for this screen, is not:
- The Commonwealth
- A Commonwealth authority
- A licensed corporation
- Another employee
Where the party named in the narrative falls inside that list, the file is out of scope for this screen. The employer-side pathway is the section 45 election and its own consequences, which is a different question with a different owner.
Encode the exclusion before the indicator list. A screen that flags internal causes produces false positives at volume and gets switched off.
Section 3: the indicator list
Write your own list from twenty real narratives before automating anything. The list below is the starting set. Add the patterns specific to your fleet, sites and contractor arrangements.
Section 4: the evidence contract
For every flag, return exactly four fields and nothing else:
- The quoted phrase from the document, verbatim.
- The source location: document name, field or page.
- The indicator matched, from the list in section 3.
- The exclusion status: whether the named party appears to fall inside the section 46 exclusion, or cannot be determined from the document.
No characterisation. A row reading "another vehicle involved" is a summary and is not admissible into this process. A row carrying the sentence from the narrative is evidence.
No prospects, no quantum, no ranking by likely recovery. Ranking by how complete the quoted evidence is, on the other hand, is useful and allowed.
Return an explicit nil for files where no indicator was matched, and a separate incomplete for files where a document was missing.
Section 5: the adjudication points
Decision point 1: does the circumstance appear to create a legal liability in a third party? That phrase comes from sections 46 and 50 and is the reader's judgement, never the model's. The reviewer reads the quoted phrase and its source, and records one of: refer for further enquiry, no third party indicated, or insufficient information with what is needed.
Decision point 2: what happens next on this file. Options, each recorded with a name and a date:
- Note the file and take no further action
- Make enquiries within the file to establish the facts
- Escalate for a view on sections 50 and 51
- Ensure the claimant is aware that a duty to notify exists under section 46, without advising them about their own common law rights
Before any suspension conversation arises on a file where Comcare has made or taken over a claim, confirm on file that section 50(5A) has been read: a suspension under section 50(5)(b) does not reach the cost of medical treatment payable under section 16.
Section 6: what the screen never does
- States that a legal liability appears to exist. That is the statutory test, and a machine output using those words is the test wearing a summary's clothes
- Estimates a recovery amount or ranks files by prospects
- Generates correspondence to a third party, an insurer or a legal representative. Nothing leaving the organisation comes out of a screen
- Advises the claimant about their own common law rights
- Treats a flag as a determination. It is not reviewable, it goes in no notice under section 61, and it changes no entitlement
Section 7: the record-keeping line
Log every run, including the nil results. A cohort with no indicators is evidence the question was asked. An unlogged screen is indistinguishable from no screen.
For each run record: the date, the population rule used, the cohort size, the count of flags, nils and incompletes, the reviewer who adjudicated each flag, and the decision recorded against each.
Record separately which findings were machine-extracted and which were human-adjudicated, so the distinction survives staff turnover.
Section 8: the standing question for a licensee
Sections 46 and 48(2) direct the notice to Comcare, and section 108C(3) redirects notices given under Part V, which covers sections 53 to 59. Sections 46 and 48 sit in Part IV.
Confirm with Comcare, in writing, how a section 46 or section 48(2) notice reaches your organisation, and file the answer with this screen. Until it is answered, run the screen on the assumption that no notice will arrive.
TheAICommand. Intelligence, At Your Command.