Date of injury or disease determines coverage by the SRC Act where the member has operational service
The date of injury or disease, together with the end date of operational service (which is collected in another question), is used by the Liability Module to establish whether the member is considered to be an employee under the SRC Act for the purposes of s 5(10), (10A), (10B) and (10C). These subsections of the SRC Act are in the following form:
5(10)Subject to subsections (10A), (10B) and (10C), this Act does not apply in relation to service of a member of the Defence Force in respect of which provision for the payment of pension is made by:
(a)the Veterans' Entitlements Act 1986; or
(b)the Papua New Guinea (Members of the Forces Benefits) Act 1957.
5(10A)Subsection (10) does not apply in relation to a veteran:
(a)who has rendered operational service on or after the day on which the Military Compensation Act 1994 commences; and
(b)for whom provision for the payment of pension in respect of service rendered by the person is made by Part II of the Veterans' Entitlement Act 1986.
5(10B)Subsection (10) does not apply in relation to a member of the Defence Force who has rendered service in respect of which provision for the payment of pension is made by Part IV of the Veterans' Entitlement Act 1986.
5(10C)Despite subsection (10), this Act applies to a claim lodged before the commencement of this subsection for compensation in respect of an injury of a member of the Defence Force that arose out of, or in the course of, any service that:
(a)the member rendered before 13 May 1997; but
(b)only became on that day service in respect of which provision for the payment of pension is made by the Veterans' Entitlements Act 1986 (because of the amendments made to that Act by Part 1 or 8 of Schedule 1 to the Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendments (Budget and Compensation Measures) Act 1997.
In broad terms, the effect of these subsections is that a member with operational service that ended before 7 April 1994 is not entitled to compensation under the SRC and is instead compensated under the VEA. Where their operational service continued on or after 7 April 1994 (the commencing date of the Military Compensation Scheme), a dual entitlement under the SRC Act and the VEA arises.
Date of Disease – Policy applied before 1 August 2000 in operational service cases
Before 1 August 2000, in cases where disease was attributed to operational service, the date required for this question was the end date of the period of operational service from which the disease arose. This date was given irrespective of the date when the client first sought medical treatment or first suffered incapacity for work.
The end date of operational service was used in this way as a short hand method for determining whether a member with operational service was covered by the SRC Act or whether they were excluded from cover by s 5(10) of the Act because they had an entitlement under the VEA. This method, while it usually resulted in a correct decision on coverage, had the undesirable side effect that an incorrect “Date of disease” was entered into the Module. The August 2000 release of the Liability Module has incorporated changes to the rules, including a new question about the end date of operational service, which will result in a correct decision on coverage and the recording of a correct “Date of disease”.
Assessors should be aware that cases involving operational service processed before 1 August 2000 may have an incorrect date of disease recorded in the Liability Module. This date should be left as is (so that it is safe to assume that all pre–1 August cases are consistent in their approach), however the incorrect date should not be allowed to flow through to other elements in Defcare (eg. the PI Calculator).