Explanatory note

This Supplementary Order Paper amends the Injury Prevention, Rehabilitation, and Compensation Amendment Bill (No 2) to ensure that the age limits for weekly compensation are not taken into account when deciding whether vocational rehabilitation would be likely to be cost-effective, which is one of the statutory criteria used by the Accident Compensation Corporation in deciding whether or not to provide vocational rehabilitation.

Currently, the Accident Compensation Corporation is required under the Injury Prevention, Rehabilitation, and Compensation Act 2001 (the Act) to consider, among other things, whether vocational rehabilitation is likely to be cost-effective, having regard to the likelihood that costs of entitlements under the Act will be reduced as a result of the provision of vocational rehabilitation. The Bill, as introduced, proposed an amendment to the Act that would have required the Corporation not to take into account any reductions in the costs of entitlements because the claimant is no longer entitled to weekly compensation. This amendment would have only applied to a claimant who has already lost his or her entitlement to weekly compensation, but not to a claimant who is approaching the age limits for weekly compensation that are set out in clause 52 of Schedule 1 of the Act.

The proposed amendment to clause 16 is intended to ensure that the Corporation cannot take into account the age limits for weekly compensation that are set out in clause 52 of Schedule 1 of the Act in deciding whether vocational rehabilitation would be likely to be cost-effective and eventually in deciding whether to provide vocational rehabilitation.

The proposed amendments will also—

• defer the commencement of certain provisions of the Bill relating to vocational rehabilitation and to work-related mental injury from 1 August 2008 until 1 October 2008 (clause 2):

• provide that a person has cover for a personal injury that is a work-related mental injury if the mental injury is suffered on or after 1 October 2008 (clause 6).