Notifiable incidents for Commonwealth workplaces: Comcare
Short answer
For Commonwealth employers and licensed self-insurers, the regulator is Comcare, not a state body. A death, serious injury or illness, or dangerous incident is notified to Comcare straight away. This guide sets out the Comcare steps and what a record should hold. Check Comcare’s own page for the current wording.
What counts, and who to call
Comcare regulates work health and safety for Commonwealth employers and licensed self-insurers. Most readers of a guide like this are in the state systems, so the opening question is whether Comcare is your regulator at all. If your workplace is a Commonwealth agency or a Comcare self-insurer, it is. Otherwise, use your state’s page. Contractors who work on both kinds of site meet both regulators, which is why the right name on a report matters. A company with sites in several jurisdictions can end up classifying the same kind of event under different regulators in one week.
How Cth differs from the model law
The model WHS Act is Safe Work Australia’s, and the Commonwealth enacted it as the Work Health and Safety Act 2011. So the structure looks familiar: a death, a serious injury or illness, or a dangerous incident, then preserving the site and keeping a record. The differences are in who the regulator is, how it receives notifications and which workplaces it covers.
A worked example
A contractor on a defence-housing site in Canberra has a plant overturn that puts a worker at serious risk. The contractor checks whether the site falls under Comcare, notifies the regulator and holds the area as it is. The same contractor also works on state-regulated sites, so each report is classified under the right regulator for its location.
How Haznote handles it
Haznote knows eight state and territory regulators. For a Commonwealth workplace it uses a general wording, and the manager confirms the right regulator by hand. We haven’t yet checked Comcare’s page for this guide, so treat it as unverified until it is marked checked.
What the regulator says
Each row shows the source’s own words, who published them and when they were last checked by script.
| Item | What it says | Source and check date |
|---|---|---|
| How to notify | Not verified yet. Not yet checked against the source, or the check is out of date. | Comcare |
| Site preservation | Not verified yet. Not yet checked against the source, or the check is out of date. | Comcare |
| Written notice | Not verified yet. Not yet checked against the source, or the check is out of date. | Comcare |
| Record keeping | Not verified yet. Not yet checked against the source, or the check is out of date. | Comcare |
Plain answers.
Is Comcare my regulator?
If your workplace is a Commonwealth employer or a Comcare licensee, yes. Otherwise your state or territory regulator applies.
Does Haznote name Comcare automatically?
Not yet. It names eight state and territory regulators, and the manager picks the right one for Commonwealth workplaces.
Why is this page marked as not yet checked?
Because the checks against Comcare’s page have not passed yet. A page counts as checked once every fact on it has current evidence.
Where this comes from.
- Notifiable incidents · Comcare
General information, not legal advice. Check the current rules with Comcare.
Flag likely-notifiable reports with Comcare named. You confirm.
Run it on one site and see the first report land in the manager’s list.