The Comcare Scheme

Comcare contributes to a secure, safer, fairer, more productive and socially inclusive Australia.

Comcare partners with workers, their employers and unions to keep workers healthy and safe, and reduce the incidence and cost of workplace injury and disease.

The Comcare scheme (the scheme) provides all scheme employers with an integrated safety, rehabilitation and compensation system, no matter what Australian state or territory an employer operates in or where its employees are located.

The scheme:

• works in partnership with employers and their employees to prevent workplace injuries
• appropriately uses regulatory sanctions for any demonstrable failure of the employer’s duty of care
• empowers employers to work with their employees to maintain an injured employee at work or to achieve an early, safe and durable return to work
• gives employers a duty to provide injured employees with suitable employment
• provides injured employees with a statutory package of economic and non economic benefits, such as
  • a high standard of income support (until retirement age if necessary)
  • medical and home help assistance, permanent impairment, aids and certain alterations and other benefits.

Comcare and the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Commission (the Commission)

Comcare and the Commission contribute to a safer, fairer, more productive and socially inclusive Australia. Together Comcare and the Commission oversee the scheme by co-regulating federal work health and safety, and workers’ compensation arrangements. The Comcare scheme is a national, integrated system.

The Commission is a statutory body with regulatory functions in relation to Comcare and other authorities which determine workers’ compensation claims under the Comcare scheme.

Both Comcare and the Commission are established under the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988 (SRC Act) and have a number of powers and functions conferred under the:

• Occupational Health and Safety Act 1991 (OHS Act)—the protection of the health, safety and welfare of workers in federal workplaces
• SRC Act—an early and safe return to work and access to compensation for injured workers.

The SRC Act establishes Comcare which has its own regulatory functions as well as claims management functions. Comcare supports the Commission in exercising its functions under the OHS Act and SRC Act.

Comcare is also responsible for managing the Commonwealth’s asbestos-related claims liabilities under the Asbestos-related Claims (Management of Commonwealth Liabilities) Act 2005 (ARC Act).