The Workers’ Compensation and Rehabilitation and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2015 was introduced into Par-liament on 15 July 2015. The Bill implements the Queensland Government’s election commitments for Restoring the Rights of Queenslanders Injured at Work.
If passed by Parliament, the Bill will achieve the Government’s commitments for workers’ compensation matters by amending the Workers’ Compensation and Rehabilitation Act 2003 to:

• Remove the current limitation on the entitlement to seek damages that requires a worker to have a degree of permanent impairment as a result of the injury greater than 5% to access common law since the date of the Queensland State election (31 January 2015)
• Establish the ability to provide additional compensation to particular workers impacted by the operation of the common law threshold, between 15 October 2013 and 31 January 2015
• Introduce provisions for firefighters diagnosed with one of 12 specified diseases that will deem their injury to be work related if they meet the required qualifying period of active firefighting service
• Remove the entitlement prospective employers have to obtain a copy of a prospective worker’s compensation claims history from the Workers’ Compensation Regulator and
• clarify certain procedural aspects of the claims process and reduce regulatory burden through a number of mi-nor miscellaneous amendments.

Source: Workcover QLD