182Time for taking proceedings

182 Time for taking proceedings (1) Subject to subsections (2) and (3), proceedings for the recovery under this Act of compensation shall not be maintainable unless notice of the injury has been given before the worker has voluntarily left the employment in which he or she was injured and unless the claim for compensation has been made: (a) within 6 months after the occurrence of the injury or, in the case of a disease, the incapacity arising from the disease; or

Return to Work Act 1986 147 (b) in the case of death, within 6 months after advice of the death has been received by the claimant. (2) The want of notice or a defect or inaccuracy in the notice shall not be a bar to the maintenance of the proceedings referred to in subsection (1) if it is found in the proceedings for the settling of the claim that the employer is not, or would not if a notice or an amended notice were then given and the hearing postponed, be prejudiced in his or her defence by the want, defect or inaccuracy, or that the want, defect or inaccuracy was occasioned by mistake, absence from the Territory or other reasonable cause. (3) The failure to make a claim within the period specified in subsection (1) shall not be a bar to the maintenance of the proceedings if it is found that the failure was occasioned by mistake, ignorance of a disease, absence from the Territory or other reasonable cause. (4) For the purposes of subsection (1), where a worker left his or her employment only by reason of the fact that, because of an injury received in that employment, he or she was unable to continue in that employment, he or she shall be taken not to have voluntarily left that employment. (5) Without limiting the generality of the meaning of reasonable cause in subsection (3): (a) the making of a payment to a person which the person believes to be a payment of compensation; or (b) any conduct on the part of the employer or his or her insurer or agent, or on the part of an employee of any of them purporting to act on behalf of the employer, by which a person is led to believe that compensation will or will probably be paid to him or her or by which he or she is led to believe that he or she is not entitled to compensation, shall be taken to be a reasonable cause within the meaning of that expression.