On 18 June 2012, the NSW Government made the biggest change to the workers compensation scheme since it started in 1926. They effectively split the scheme into two classes of injured worker:
- Police, firefighters and paramedics (or emergency services first responders, thereafter known as Exempt Workers); and
- Everyone else.
In 2015 and 2018, the government made further major changes to the scheme, which only affected “everyone else“, and not NSW Police Officers (or any exempt worker).
In other words, each time a change has been made, there has been a specific “Schedule“, or “Transitional Provision“, which is tacked onto the end of the amending legislation, and which specifically exempts emergency services first responders from the effect of the changes.
The workers compensation scheme that applies to NSW Police Officers (and other exempt workers) is therefore vastly different to the scheme that applies to everyone else.
In April 2025 the government announced it was making further changes to the workers compensation scheme, which are intended to drastically overhaul the way workers compensation claims for psychological injury are handled.
On 9 May 2025, the government released an Exposure Draft of the Workers Compensation Legislation Amendment Bill 2025 (the Bill).
Unlike the amending Acts in 2012, 2015 and 2018, the Bill does not contain a “Schedule“, or “Transitional Provision“, which specifically exempts emergency services first responders from the effect of the changes.
However, the way the Bill has been drafted makes it completely unworkable to apply it to Police Officers (or to any exempt workers). You would have to be dragged out of your scheme and into the other scheme before the changes could apply to you. That hasn’t been addressed at all in the Bill.
The absence of the exclusion clause may be an oversight, or it may be just something that the government intends to do when they finalise the legislation.
The Police Association of NSW insist that they negotiated an exclusion for NSW Police Officers from the changes to the scheme set out in the Bill when they negotiated the Police Award in 2024.
We haven’t been able to find that exclusion anywhere in the 2024 Award, and it doesn’t belong in the Award anyway. The “agreement“ might be in a letter somewhere which we don’t have access to. One of our clients rang the Police Association of NSW on 15 May 2025 and got a very clear message that an exclusion had been negotiated, but they just couldn’t point our client to (or provide them with) the document confirming this.
So where does this leave you?
The Bill may not pass at all, or it may pass with significant amendments. As it currently stands, it is difficult to see how it could possibly apply to Police Officers (or any exempt worker) because it just doesn’t address moving you out of your current scheme and into the same scheme as everyone else.
At this stage the Bill is only in draft, so we can’t provide any specific advice yet as to how your claim may be affected by the amendments.
The government has referred the Exposure Draft to a parliamentary inquiry for feedback. We understand that inquiry has until 23 May 2025 to give feedback on the Exposure Draft before the final version is published.
Rest assured that we are following the passage of the Bill through Parliament very closely and will provide an update as soon as possible.