Steele and Comcare (Compensation)

This matter came before Deputy S Boyle P of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal concerning the Applicant's request for the Tribunal to issue summonses for the production of documents. The Applicant, formerly employed by the ATO, sought these documents in support of his substantive application to review Comcare's decision that it had no present liability for medical treatment and incapacity payments under the *Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988* (SRC Act). Comcare had accepted liability for a lumbar strain suffered by the Applicant in 2011, but later determined that his current symptoms were due to age-related degeneration unrelated to his employment.

The legal issues before the Tribunal were whether the proposed summonses were appropriate to issue, considering the potential for them to assist in the resolution of the issues in the proceedings, and whether they constituted an abuse of process or a "fishing expedition." The Applicant sought a wide range of documents from Comcare, the ATO, and MLCOA, relating to the decision-making process, the engagement of medical experts, internal reviews, and the Applicant's employment history and performance at the ATO.

The Tribunal reasoned that the proposed summonses were overly broad and vague, requiring recipients to interpret or guess the documents sought. It found that many of the requested documents were not relevant to the core issue before the Tribunal, which was the correctness of Comcare's decision regarding present liability for medical treatment and incapacity payments as at April 2017. The Tribunal concluded that there was no apparent forensic purpose for which the documents could be used in the proceedings and that some requests appeared to stem from broader complaints by the Applicant against Comcare and its officers, which were not relevant to the determination of the substantive application.

Consequently, the Tribunal refused the Applicant's request to issue the summonses in the form proposed.