This question is seeking to establish whether a causal link exists between the client's employment with the Department of Defence and their medical condition (being a disease or an aggravation of a disease). The required causal link for diseases is whether the employment contributed in a material degree to the disease or aggravation thereof.
This causal test is raised in two contexts in the 1988 Act:
- in the definition of “disease” in s 4(1); and
- in a more specialised context in s 7(1) where specified types of employment are deemed to have made a material contribution to specified diseases, unless the contrary is proved on the balance of probabilities.
The relevant parts of the SRC Act are:
“disease” means:
(a)any ailment suffered by an employee; or
(b)the aggravation of any such ailment;
being an ailment or an aggravation that was contributed to in a material degree by the employee's employment by the Commonwealth or a licensed corporation;
7(1)Where:
(a)an employee has suffered, or is suffering, from a disease or the death of an employee results from a disease;
(b)the disease is of a kind specified by the Minister by notice in writing as a disease related to employment of a kind specified in the notice; and
(c)the employee was, at any time before symptoms of the disease first became apparent, engaged by the Commonwealth or a licensed corporation in employment of that kind;
the employment in which the employee was so engaged shall, for the purposes of this Act, be taken to have contributed in a material degree to the contraction of the disease, unless the contrary is established.
Note that a different causal test is applied to injuries and aggravations of injuries, ie. whether the injury has arisen out of, or in the course of, employment.