Injuries on or after 1 January 1996 and before 31 January 1997

For injuries sustained during this period a ‘worker’ is defined in section 5 of the Workers' Compensation Act 1990 to mean a person who works under a contract of service or apprenticeship with an employer with certain specific inclusions and exclusions.

Labour hire agencies are deemed to be 'employers' even though a worker may perform duties for another person (section 47).

'Injury' is defined in section 6 as personal injury arising out of, or in the course of employment, if the employment was a significant contributing factor to the injury.  'Injury' includes the disease, aggravation or acceleration of a disease, loss of hearing and death (section 6 (3)).

The legislation excludes an injury suffered because of:

• reasonable disciplinary action taken in a reasonable way against the worker in connection with their employment
• reasonable action taken in a reasonable way to transfer or redeploy the worker
• failure by the worker to obtain a promotion, transfer or benefit.