Retirement dates affecting compensation entitlements

Retirement dates affecting compensation entitlements

Four dates, in particular, have major implications for the treatment of superannuation and incapacity compensation under the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988 (the SRC Act):

• 30 November 1988: A Reservist client who “immediately before” the commencement of the SRC Act on 1/12/1988 was in receipt of weekly compensation and had ceased to be a Commonwealth employee is a “former employee” under the SRC Act and has a different set of weekly compensation entitlements to that of current employees (non-former employees);
• 1 December 1988: the compensation reduction provisions in s20 and s21 only apply if the Reservist client retired from their Commonwealth employment on or after the commencement of the SRC Act on 1 December 1988.  If the client retired from Commonwealth employment before that date, their superannuation benefits must not be taken into account;
• 24 December 1992: s 21A, which commenced on 24 December 1992, deals with the situation where a Reservist client receives both a superannuation pension and a superannuation lump-sum benefit as a result of retirement from Commonwealth employment.  If the client retired before that date, only the superannuation pension can be taken into account; the superannuation lump sum benefit is not caught by the compensation reduction provisions of the Act.
• 7 April 1994: the Military Compensation Act 1994, which commenced on 7 April 1994, provides that clients continue to receive weekly compensation at 100% of normal weekly earnings for the first 45 weeks of incapacity, whether or not they are discharged from the ADF during this period.  However, for clients who retired before 7 April 1994, compensation is reduced to 75%* of NWE immediately upon discharge from the ADF.
  [* the percentage of NWE may be higher if the client engages in suitable employment.]