[33] If the Victorian decisions are correct, it is difficult to think that the language of the WorkCover Act is any less destructive of a plaintiff's cause of action than the words of the Transport Accident Act (Vic). For our part however, with respect, we find the reasoning in these decisions less than compelling. Were the matter free from recent authority such as these decisions and the line of authority which now proceeds from Commonwealth of Australia v Flaviano concerning the Comcare Act[22], we should have been inclined to hold that an injured worker obtains a right of action when injured through the fault of the employer and that only the remedy is precluded unless and until various steps are taken. The decision of Harding v The Council of the Municipality of Lithgow[23] is a persuasive authority in which Latham CJ, Rich J, Starke J, Dixon J, Evatt J and McTiernan J each wrote separate judgments arriving at the same conclusion. The statutory provision in question was a provision of the Local Government Act 1919-1935 (NSW) that required a notice in writing to be served on the council. It required that "a writ or other process in respect of any damage or injury to person ... shall not be sued out ... until the expiration of one month after" the necessary notice in writing had been served on the Council. The injured man died before any such notice had been given and the question was whether his widow was "entitled to maintain an action and recover damages" under s 3 of the Compensation to Relatives Act 1897-1928 (NSW). Latham CJ considered that the deceased man had a "right to maintain an action"[24] notwithstanding his failure to serve the prescribed notice and notwithstanding that if he had not given such notice his action would have failed. Rich J stated that "the cause of action or right to compensation may subsist without the claimant having taken any or all of the preliminaries essential to the issue of process"[25]. Starke J considered that "the right of the deceased, if death had not ensued, to maintain an action depends not upon the procedural steps necessary to enforce the right but upon the liability to him of the person guilty of the wrongful act, neglect or default. The deceased, as has been pointed out in the cases "may have lost such a right in a number of ways". But neglect to give a notice of action before commencing proceedings would not affect his cause of action, but only the process by which it is enforced". Dixon J observed that "the imposition in favour of a particular defendant of a condition of suit, such as giving notice, is a procedural matter not going to the validity of the title to enforce the liability, but only to the mode of enforcing it, or the fulfilment of a preliminary procedural condition". Evatt J stated "[t]he fact that such person may subsequently lose his right to maintain an action is immaterial". McTiernan J stated that "[i]f he had survived there would have been no bar to him maintaining the action, but the section would have required him to serve the prescribed notice of action before suing the respondent".