Contents
1............ Short title............................................................................................. 2
2............ Commencement................................................................................... 2
3............ Schedule(s)......................................................................................... 2
Schedule 1—Amendments 3
Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988 3
Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment (Fair Protection for Firefighters) Act 2011
No. 182, 2011
An Act to amend provisions in the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988 relating to injuries sustained by firefighters, and for related purposes
[Assented to 6 December 2011]
The Parliament of Australia enacts:
1 Short title
This Act may be cited as the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment (Fair Protection for Firefighters) Act 2011.
2 Commencement
This Act commences on the day after it receives the Royal Assent.
3 Schedule(s)
Each Act that is specified in a Schedule to this Act is amended or repealed as set out in the applicable items in the Schedule concerned, and any other item in a Schedule to this Act has effect according to its terms.
Schedule 1—Amendments
Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988
1 After subsection 7 (7)
Insert:
(8) If an employee:
(a) suffers a disease mentioned in the following table; and
(b) before the disease was sustained, was employed as a firefighter for the qualifying period mentioned for that disease; and
(c) was exposed to the hazards of a fire scene during that period; and
(d) in the case of a cancer of a kind covered by item 13 of the following table—satisfies the conditions (if any) prescribed for such a cancer;
the employment is, for the purposes of this Act, taken to have contributed, to a significant degree, to the contraction of the disease, unless the contrary is established.
| Item | Disease | Qualifying period |
| 1 | Primary site brain cancer | 5 years |
| 2 | Primary site bladder cancer | 15 years |
| 3 | Primary site kidney cancer | 15 years |
| 4 | Primary non-Hodgkins lymphoma | 15 years |
| 5 | Primary leukemia | 5 years |
| 6 | Primary site breast cancer | 10 years |
| 7 | Primary site testicular cancer | 10 years |
| 8 | Multiple myeloma | 15 years |
| 9 | Primary site prostate cancer | 15 years |
| 10 | Primary site ureter cancer | 15 years |
| 11 | Primary site colorectal cancer | 15 years |
| 12 | Primary site oesophageal cancer | 25 years |
| 13 | A cancer of a kind prescribed for this table | The period prescribed for such a cancer |
(9) For the purposes of subsection (8):
(a) an employee is taken to have been employed as a firefighter if firefighting duties made up a substantial portion of his or her duties; and
(b) an employee who was employed as a firefighter for 2 or more periods that add up to the qualifying period is taken to have been so employed for the qualifying period; and
(c) an employee is taken to have been employed as a firefighter only if he or she was (disregarding the effect of any declarations under subsection 5(15)) employed as a firefighter by the Commonwealth, a Commonwealth authority or a licensed corporation.
(10) Subsection (8) does not limit, and is not limited by, subsections (1) and (2).
2 Review of amendment
(1) The Minister must cause an independent review of the operation of the amendment made by item 1 to be undertaken and completed by 31 December 2013.
(2) The person who undertakes the review must give the Minister a written report of the review.
(3) The report must be published on the Department’s website.
3 Application
The amendment made by item 1 applies in relation to a disease that an employee sustains on or after 4 July 2011.