Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment) Share this | Hansard source

The Federal Court decision has left a situation where potentially a lot of payments that had previously been made under the equivalent state workers compensation legislation could have been questioned. Also, action taken against employers under the state legislation could have been questioned as potentially being without jurisdiction. So the purpose of this particular legislation is to leave the law as it was believed to be by everybody. As indicated, I will ask for the authority to keep monitoring the situation to ensure that we do not have any unintended consequences for workers, employers or any other stakeholder.