About Comcare
Comcare is the national authority for work health and safety, and workers’ compensation.
Our role
We are a government regulator, workers’ compensation insurer, claims manager and scheme administrator.
Through our role, we work with employees and other workers, employers, service providers and other organisations to:
- minimise the impact of harm in the workplace
- improve recovery at work and return to work
- promote the health benefits of good work.
We collaborate and partner with other schemes and organisations on research and innovative projects that improve outcomes.
We also provide expert advice and services to the:
- Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Commission (SRCC), and
- Seafarers Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Authority (Seacare Authority).
Strategic priorities
Comcare's purpose is to promote and enable safe and healthy work. This outcome drives our work.
To deliver on this outcome, our focus is on five strategic priorities:
Excellence in service provision
As a service delivery agency, we put our stakeholders at the centre of the things we do. We are responsive to growing community expectations of the public sector to provide seamless, personalised services and strive to exceed them. Our services are tailored to our stakeholders’ needs and in delivering these services we live and model our values, including acting with integrity and respect.
Engagement with our stakeholders
We strive to uphold a positive reputation as an effective regulator and service delivery agency. We are always open to feedback from our stakeholders and undertake to consult widely on issues that impact them. We aim to engage in authentic, meaningful and genuine interactions with stakeholders at all levels, and to ensure we are courteous and professional in all our dealings.
Prevention and early intervention across our scheme
As the national workers’ compensation authority and work health and safety regulator, we play a leading role in supporting safe and healthy workplaces. We do this by working with employers to adopt risk and evidence-based prevention and early intervention practices, with the ultimate aim of supporting employers and workers to create and maintain physically and mentally healthy workplaces.
Prevention Strategy 2022-2025
The Prevention Strategy aims to provide a coordinated pathway to support workplaces to prevent harm and enable a culture of health and safety, compliance and reporting.
The Strategy identifies three priority areas for preventative action:
- bullying and harassment including sexual harassment
- work demands
- body stressing.
Our aim is to see improvements in preventable workplace harms and early intervention across the Comcare Scheme through:
- working collaboratively with the Scheme and stakeholders
- encouraging interaction with Comcare’s prevention and early intervention programs and services
- using data-led, systems-focused, and evidence-based approaches
- maintaining alignment with relevant legislative frameworks, strategies and policies
- influencing Comcare’s relevant programs of work.
Insight driven and risk and evidence-based practice
We are working to harness the power of data and analytics to drive our approach to promoting and enabling safe and healthy work. We use all available information to continually improve our services and to identify and address the needs of our scheme. We undertake research and engage with emerging evidence to validate our approach. We regularly evaluate our performance and change course where necessary. We challenge assumptions and do not accept the status quo.
Being adaptive and sustainable in the face of change
We are a flexible and adaptive agency, always open to new ideas and new ways of doing things. We consider the broader environment and are proactive in dealing with its impacts. We aim to encourage innovation in the development of sustainable solutions to health and safety issues. We also endeavour to use the latest tools, data and technology to develop new solutions to problems.
Organisational structure
See Comcare's Organisational structure.
Governing legislation
Comcare was established under the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988 (SRC Act). This legislation sets out the functions and powers of Comcare.
Comcare also has functions and responsibilities under the:
- Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (WHS Act)
- Asbestos-related Claims (Management of Commonwealth Liabilities) Act 2005, and
- Parliamentary Injury Compensation Scheme (PICS) established under the Parliamentary Resources Act 2017.
Through these pieces of legislation, we have roles as the workers’ compensation insurer, national work health and safety regulator and scheme manager. We also manage the Commonwealth's asbestos-related claims liabilities and administer the PICS which provides injury compensation coverage for Australian Government parliamentarians and the Prime Minister’s spouse.
For more information, see About the Comcare scheme.
Corporate publications
- Annual Report
- Corporate Plan
- Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Commission (SRCC) Annual Report
- Senate Order for Entity Contracts lists.
See a full list of our Corporate publications.
Diversity program
See Comcare’s Diversity program.