Decisions on compensation

Press, 8 July 1976, Page 20

Decisions on compensation

When the new accident compensation scheme began the Accident Compensation Commission was criticised for allowing almost all the claims made of it. Recently the commission has come under fire for rejecting some claims which the applicants considered to be justifiable. The impression may have been given that the commission is now strict and rejects many claims. In fact nearly every application for compensation is still being approved and those whose applications are rejected can easily have a rejection reviewed. The reviewing of doubtful claims and the hearing of appeals on unsuccessful reviews are helping to clarify the Accident Compensation Act. Legislation cannot possibly specify all circumstances in which compensation is properly payable. A body of “ case law ” is still needed and the commission will accumulate this as people who feel their claims have been wrongly rejected require the commission to state precisely the conditions under which it will accept some claims and reject others. The cases which have been drawn to public attention recently concern the problem of what to do about those who are unable to continue working not because of a single, identifiable accident but because of a minor disability arising from the nature of their work, or perhaps, some constitutional disability to perform a particular job. Compensation is provided, under the act, for people disabled by occupational diseases and by industrial deafness. It seems appropriate that employers should, through the levies they pay to the commission, assume responsibility for supporting a person who is unable to work because of a physical condition which has resulted directly from the nature of the tasks that an employee has been required

to perform. The danger is, however, that these disabilities are often minor, vague, and provide admirable excuses for a tiny, irresponsible minority to lodge frivolous or even outrageous claims. The commission must have the power to reject the claims made by such people or it will be open to the charge of encouraging malingering or unjustified absences from work. The particular cases which have arisen recently also pose, indirectly, the question of where the border lies between minor ailments caused by accident or injury at work and those that should be classified as sickness, which the Accident Compensation Act does not cover. When the commission has managed to draw a line, people for whom it has declined to pay compensation, but who are in need, may secure the sickness benefit from the Department of Social Welfare—though this provides a lower level of support than accident compensation.

The commission would be spared the tricky task of deciding where its own responsibilities end and those of the Department of Social Welfare begin if compensation were extended to cover all instances of involuntary absence from work, whether the cause be injury or illness. This step was contemplated by the Royal Commission from whose report the compensation scheme emerged. It should not be taken without thorough debate, and even if the conclusion favours an extension of the scheme to sickness, the means of the community to pay must be considered. In the meantime the commission will have to continue to work as best it can in some grey areas and applicants for compensation should not be too surprised if decisions made by employees or agents of the commission have to be challenged.