EXPLANATORY STATEMENT

Seafarers Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1992

Issued by the Seafarers Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Authority

Notice of Legislative Instrument

Approved Guide:  Revocation of the Guide to the Assessment of the Degree

of Permanent Impairment (First Edition)

The purpose of the instrument to which this Explanatory Statement relates is to revoke the first edition of the Guide setting out the criteria by which the degree of permanent impairment and non-economic loss suffered by an injured employee shall be assessed for the purposes of the Seafarers Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1992 (Seafarers Act).

Section 39 of the Seafarers Act provides that where an injury to an employee results in a permanent impairment, the employer is liable to pay compensation to the employee in respect of that injury and the degree of permanent impairment shall be a percentage determined under the provisions of the approved Guide.

Section 42 provides that the Seafarers Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Authority (Seacare Authority) may prepare a written document, to be called the “Guide to the Assessment of the Degree of Permanent Impairment” and may, from time to time, vary or revoke the approved Guide.  In accordance with subsection 42(2) of the Seafarers Act, the instrument revokes the first edition of the Guide.

The instrument is a legislative instrument for the purposes of the Legislative Instruments Act 2003.

The first edition of the Guide was issued in 1993.  It was based on the 2nd edition of the American Medical Association’s Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment, and the first edition of Comcare’s Guide to the Assessment of the Degree of Permanent Impairment (the Comcare Guide). The content of the first edition of the Seacare Guide has fallen behind developments in medical assessment of permanent impairment, and has, by implication of judicial criticism of the first edition of the Comcare Guide, also been subject to criticism.

On 1 September 2005, Comcare revoked the first edition of the Comcare Guide under subsection 28(2) of the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988. In revoking the first edition and developing the second edition of the Comcare Guide, Comcare undertook extensive consultation with relevant stakeholders including medical and legal practitioners, and employee representatives. As the Seacare Authority includes employer and employee representatives (the Seacare stakeholders), no further consultation was undertaken.