Northern Territory Consolidated Acts

WORK HEALTH ACT - SECT 4

(1) Without limiting the generality of the meaning of the expression, an injury to a worker shall be taken to arise "out of or in the course of his or her employment" if the injury occurs while he or she -

(a) on a working day that he or she attends at his or her workplace -

(i) is present at the workplace; or

(ii) having been present at the workplace, is temporarily absent on that day in the course of his or her employment or during an ordinary recess and does not during that absence voluntarily subject himself or herself to an abnormal risk of injury;

(b) is travelling by the shortest convenient route between his or her place of residence and his or her workplace;

(c) is travelling by the shortest convenient route between -

(i) his or her place of residence or his or her workplace; and

(ii) a trade, technical or other training school which he or she is required to attend by the terms of his or her employment or as an apprentice or which he or she is expected to attend by his or her employer;

(d) is in attendance at a school referred to in paragraph (c)(ii) whilst so required to attend;

(e) is travelling by the shortest convenient route between -

(i) his or her place of residence or his or her workplace; and

(ii) any other place for the purpose of obtaining a medical certificate, receiving medical, surgical or hospital advice, attention or treatment, or receiving a payment of compensation in connection with an injury for which he or she is entitled to receive compensation or for the purpose of submitting to a medical examination required by or under this Act;

(f) is in attendance at a place referred to in paragraph (e)(ii) for a purpose so referred to; or

(g) being a worker who is employed by more than one employer and has attended on a working day at a workplace for one employer, is travelling by the shortest convenient route between that place and his or her place of employment for another employer.

(2) Subsection (1) does not apply if an injury sustained while travelling is sustained during or after a substantial interruption of or substantial deviation from the worker's journey made for a reason unconnected with his or her employment or attendance at a school or place referred to in subsection (1)(c)(ii) or (1)(e)(ii), which, having regard to all the circumstances, would ordinarily have materially added to the risk of injury.

(2A) Notwithstanding subsection (1), an injury to a worker shall be taken not to arise "out of or in the course of his or her employment" if the injury is sustained in an accident, as defined in the Motor Accidents (Compensation) Act , while he or she -

(a) having been at his or her workplace, is temporarily absent during an ordinary recess;

(b) except as provided in subsection (2B), is travelling in circumstances referred to in subsection (1)(b) or (g); or

(c) is travelling between his or her place of residence and a place referred to in subsection (1)(c)(ii) or (e)(ii).

(2B) Subsection (2A)(b) does not apply where a worker -

(a) is travelling between his or her place of residence and a workplace, which is not his or her normal or usual workplace, at the request of his or her employer; or

(b) is required by his or her employer to work outside his or her normal hours of work while he or she is travelling between his or her place of residence and a workplace and, in accordance with the terms of his or her employment, he or she is paid, in whole or in part, for the time taken to travel to that workplace.

(3) In a case referred to in paragraph (g) of subsection (1), the injury shall be deemed to have occurred while the worker was being employed by the employer last mentioned in that paragraph.

(4) An injury shall be deemed to arise out of or in the course of employment even though at the time that the injury occurred the worker was acting -

(a) in contravention of a regulation (whether by or under an Act or otherwise) applicable to the work in which he or she is employed; or

(b) without instructions from his or her employer,

if the act was done by the worker for the purposes of and in connection with his or her employer's trade or business.

(5) An injury shall be deemed to arise out of or in the course of a worker's employment where it occurred by way of a gradual process over a period of time and the employment in which he or she was employed at any time during that period materially contributed to the injury.

(6) Unless the contrary is established, a disease shall be taken to have been contracted by a worker in the course of his or her employment if -

(a) it is a disease, or a disease of a kind, specified in Column 1 of Schedule 1 as related to employment of a kind specified in Column 2 of that Schedule opposite to that disease in Column 1; and

(b) the worker -

(i) was, at any time before he or she became aware of his or her contraction of that disease, engaged as a worker in employment of that kind; or

(ii) died without having become so aware but was, at any time before he or she died, engaged as a worker in employment of that kind.

(6A) Subject to this section, a disease shall be taken not to have been contracted by a worker or to have not been aggravated, accelerated or exacerbated in the course of the worker's employment unless the employment in which the worker is or was employed materially contributed to the worker's contraction of the disease or to its aggravation, acceleration or exacerbation.

(7) In this section -

"working day", in relation to a worker, means any day on which he or she attends at his or her workplace for the purpose of working;

"workplace", where there is no fixed workplace, includes the whole area, scope or ambit of the worker's employment.

(8) For the purposes of this section, the employment of a worker is not to be taken to have materially contributed to -

(a) an injury or disease; or

(b) an aggravation, acceleration or exacerbation of a disease,

unless the employment was the real, proximate or effective cause of the injury, disease, aggravation, acceleration or exacerbation.