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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 12 Hansard (21 November) . . Page.. 4234 ..

easing the financial burden on employers, and providing a fair and equitable compensation coverage for injured workers.

At present, ACT employers are required to have more than one workers' compensation policy to cover employees who work in more than one State. This is an unnecessary financial burden for our employers as it means that wherever an additional policy is required, there is a duplication in the payment of premium, although, of course, the employee(s) receives only one wage or salary.

Also, employees, who are injured while working interstate, may claim compensation, in either the "home" Territory (or State) or where the injury occurred, where the benefits are perceived to be more favourable. This creates an undesirable practice known as "forum shopping".

This has a particular disadvantage for the ACT scheme which is one of the few workers' compensation jurisdiction to still have unlimited access to common law. An interstate worker, if injured while working in the ACT, may lodge an ACT compensation claim and/or common law action (which may not be possible in the worker's "home State"). If either claim was successful and if no ACT policy was held by the interstate employer, then the ACT Nominal Insurer would pay the amount of compensation or damages. ACT insurers would then be levied for the amount of compensation or damages, meaning that our ACT insurers would be required to pay for a claim for which no premium had been received in the ACT.

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