The proceedings on the referral dated 15 December 2025 filed by the employer pursuant to s 81A of the Workers Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988 (Tribunal reference W/2025/1935) are to be transferred to the Magistrates Court.

Workers compensation - Whether federal jurisdiction issue - Date upon which 'matter' between the parties arises - Transfer to Magistrates Court.

Workers Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988; s 81A;

Tasmanian Civil and Administrative Tribunal Act 2020; ss 10, 131;

The Constitution; ss 75, 77

DHT v The State of Tasmania (Department for Education, Children and Young People) [2024] TASCAT 153;

The State of Tasmania (Department of Health and Human Services) v M.; M. v The State of Tasmania (Department of Health and Human Services) [2018] TASWRCT 24;

Palmer v Ayers; Ferguson v Ayers [2017] HCA 5;

The Australian Temperance and General Mutual Life Assurance Society Limited v Howe [1922] HCA 50; (1922) 31 CLR 290.

The decision has been anonymised for the purpose of publication.

1. The worker made a claim for compensation on 10 November 2025. The worker identified in her claim form that she had suffered chronic severe anxiety, and noted the date of injury/initial incapacity to have been 29 October 2024.
2. The worker was employed within the Department of Health, which is a State Government Department. For the purposes of the claim for compensation, the State of Tasmania is the worker's employer.
3. The employer elected to dispute liability to pay compensation to the worker in respect of her claim, and on 15 December 2025 referred the dispute to the Tribunal under s 81A of the Workers Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988 (the WRC Act).
4. At the same time the s 81A referral was filed, the employer (through its Fund Administration Agent) raised a jurisdictional issue, in that it submitted that a federal diversity issue existed because the worker was a resident of Victoria. On that basis, the employer said that the Tribunal does not have jurisdiction to hear a matter between the State of Tasmania and a resident of another State, and the s 81A referral ought to be transferred to the Magistrates Court pursuant to s 131(2) of the Tasmanian Civil and Administrative Tribunal Act 2020 (the TASCAT Act).
5. The Tribunal asked the parties whether they were content for a decision to be made on the papers about whether the proceedings should be transferred as sought by the employer. The employer was content. The worker said in one of several emails to the Tribunal on 17 December 2025 that she would prefer the Tribunal to deal with the s 81A referral.
6. The referral was listed for a directions hearing on 13 January 2026.
7. The worker on 22 December 2025 asked that the directions hearing be delayed until early February 2026, because she was trying to obtain legal representation. The application for adjournment was opposed by the employer.
8. On 23 December 2025, the worker filed a brief written submission to the effect that the Tribunal has jurisdiction to hear the s 81A referral.
9. On 24 December 2025, the worker sent an email to the employer's representative (which was copied to the Tribunal). She advised that she was unable to represent herself at the directions hearing due to a disability. She said that although she had tried, she had been unable to obtain legal representation. She suggested she could contact 'the other party' (I infer someone at the Department of Health) to see if they were happy to change the hearing to another day.
10. At my direction, the Tribunal Registry sent an email to the worker asking her if she could, firstly, advise the nature of her disability and the reason(s) it prevented her from participating in the directions hearing, and secondly, for confirmation as to whether her residential address continued to be the same as the address in Victoria that was set out in the claim form.
11. The worker responded by email on 24 December 2025, advising that she has severe anxiety, and that she can experience anxiety and get confused and that she sometimes has difficulties with focusing on questions and responding. She confirmed her current address as being the same address in Victoria that was on her claim for compensation.

1. I am going to determine the question of whether the employer's s 81A referral should be transferred to the Magistrates Court based on the material presently on the Tribunal file, and without the need for the directions hearing.
2. I have decided to do so having regard to the following:
   • the question to be determined is relatively straightforward in nature, and there is material before the Tribunal that can enable that determination to be made without the need for oral submissions.
   • the worker has indicated that she would be unable to effectively engage in a directions hearing, but has not been able to obtain legal representation.
   • the objectives of the Tribunal are set out in s 10 of the TASCAT Act, and include the need for referrals to be processed and resolved as quickly as possible while achieving a just outcome, and the need to keep costs to a minimum insofar as is just and appropriate
   • there has already been some unavoidable delay (because of the time of year that the s 81A referral was filed) in resolving the question of whether the referral should be transferred. There is ongoing prejudice to the employer where it continues to make weekly payments of compensation to the worker as it awaits the ultimate resolution of its s 81A referral.

1. Section 75(iv) of the Constitution provides that the High Court of Australia has original jurisdiction in all matters "between a State and a resident of another State". By virtue of s 77 of the Constitution, any court of a State may be vested with federal jurisdiction.
2. In Burns v Corbett [2018] HCA 15, the High Court held that State tribunals that are not State courts have no jurisdiction to exercise judicial power in relation to classes of 'matters' under s 75 of the Constitution[1]. State Parliaments do not have power to confer jurisdiction to determine matters under s 75 of the Constitution upon a State tribunal. It is only courts that may be vested with that jurisdiction.
3. This Tribunal is not a court of the State of Tasmania, but it exercises judicial power in determining referrals under the WRC Act: see DHT v The State of Tasmania (Department for Education, Children and Young People) [2024] TASCAT 153, applying The State of Tasmania (Department of Health and Human Services) v M.; M. v The State of Tasmania (Department of Health and Human Services) [2018] TASWRCT 24 (State of Tasmania v M).
4. A dispute under s 81A of the WRC Act about an employer's liability to pay compensation to a worker in respect of a claim for compensation is a justiciable controversy, and a 'matter' within the meaning of s 75 of the Constitution: see Palmer v Ayers; Ferguson v Ayers [2017] HCA 5 at [26] - [27].
5. The Tribunal therefore does not have jurisdiction to determine a referral under s 81A of the WRC Act where the employer is the State of Tasmania and the worker is a resident of another State. However, the TASCAT Act provides a means by which such matters may be transferred to the Magistrates Court to be resolved
6. Section 131(2) of the TASCAT Act provides:

If, following an application made to the Tribunal in the manner and form required under this Act for the kind of application concerned, the Tribunal considers that -

(a) it does not have, or there is some doubt as to whether it has, jurisdiction to determine the application because its determination may involve the exercise of federal jurisdiction; and

(b) the Tribunal would otherwise have had jurisdiction enabling it to determine the application -

the Tribunal may order that proceedings on the application be transferred to the Magistrates Court.

Materials on the Tribunal file relevant to the jurisdictional issue

1. Documents filed by the employer in support of its s 81A referral included the claim form, initial medical certificate, and general practice medical records regarding the worker covering the period 1 January 2025 to 28 November 2025.
2. The claim form, completed in November 2025, gives the worker's residential address in a suburb in Victoria. The initial medical certificate that supported the worker's claim was completed on 7 November 2025 by a medical practitioner at a practice in Victoria, and provided the same address for the worker. The medical records note the same address for the worker from about June 2025, and earlier records from March 2025 refer to a different address, but which is also an address in Victoria.
3. In her emails to the Tribunal on 17 December 2025, the worker said, in part:

This is a workers compensation matter for a work incident which happened in Tasmania and I believe that the Tribunal has jurisdiction over workers compensation claims for Tasmanian employers.

I meant TASCAT has jurisdiction over the Department of Health Tasmania and myself in relation to my workers compensation claim. I also have been a Tasmanian Resident previously - I sold my house in Tasmania and have settlement this week.

1. In her email to the Tribunal on 23 December 2025, in relation to the question of the Tribunal's jurisdiction, the worker said:

I would like this matter to be disputed at TASCAT as I believe that it has jurisdictions because Tasmania is a State of employment, Employment Contract is governed Tasmanian Law, during time of employment I had a strong connection to State: I had a house located [an address in Launceston] where I was planning to reside during September 2024 - February 2025 and possibly longer in 2025. This house I bought in 2014 and it remained my home. I was hoping that my employment contract will be extended as discussed with employer [name of employer contact] for longer (another 6 months) and I will remain a resident of State.

2. The worker attached to her email a copy of the City of Launceston Notice of Rates and Charges for the Launceston address, issued on 16 July 2025 for the period ending 30 June 2026.

1. On the face of the worker's claim form and initial workers compensation medical certificate, the worker's claim is for a psychological or mental health injury that she alleges to have suffered in late October 2024, which she says was caused by her employment.
2. However, neither the date of the claim for compensation, nor the date of the claimed injury are determinative of whether there is a federal jurisdiction issue. The relevant date, for the purposes of this determination, is the date upon which the 'matter' between the parties arises. No justiciable controversy arises between parties to a claim for compensation at the time that the worker makes the claim: See State of Tasmania v M at [33].
3. A justiciable controversy between the parties in this instance arose when the employer filed the s 81A referral, disputing its liability to pay compensation to the worker in respect of her claim. It is therefore the date that the referral was filed in the Tribunal that is the relevant date for considering whether the worker was a 'resident of another State' in the context of the federal jurisdiction question.
4. A person can only be a resident of one State at a time. A resident is a person who lives, dwells and has their home in some place: The Australian Temperance and General Mutual Life Assurance Society Limited v Howe [1922] HCA 50; (1922) 31 CLR 290.
5. Having regard to the materials that I have referred to above at [20] - [24], it appears that the worker, at the time the employer filed its s 81A referral, was not a resident of Tasmania, and was a resident of another State, namely Victoria.

1. I find that the State of Tasmania, as the employer of the worker, is a party to the s 81A referral, the referral is a 'matter' for the purposes of s 75(iv) of the Constitution, the justiciable issue constituting the 'matter' between the parties arose when the referral was filed with the Tribunal, and at the date of filing the worker was a resident of another State.
2. On that basis I consider that the Tribunal does not have jurisdiction to hear the referral, because the Tribunal's determination would involve the exercise of federal jurisdiction regarding a matter between a State and a resident of another State.
3. If the federal jurisdiction question had not arisen, there is no doubt that the Tribunal would otherwise have had jurisdiction to deal with the employer's s 81A referral.
4. Section 131(2) of the TASCAT Act gives the Tribunal the discretion to order that these proceedings be transferred to the Magistrates Court. It is appropriate that such an order be made so the employer's s 81A referral can be heard and determined.

1. I order that the proceedings on the referral dated 15 December 2025 filed by the employer pursuant to s 81A of the Workers Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988 (Tribunal reference W/2025/1935) are to be transferred to the Magistrates Court.
2. I direct that the Tribunal's file is to be forwarded to the Hobart Registry of the Magistrates Court with an order in these terms and a copy of these reasons for determination.

[1] The same applies to matters under s 76 of the Constitution.