Since 2021 the seafarers’ deemed-disease list tied acute poisoning to the wrong seven chemicals. The fix names 42, with no minimum period

What changed on 11 September

The Seafarers Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1992 lets the Minister list diseases and the kinds of maritime work taken to cause them. The list is the Seafarers Rehabilitation and Compensation (Specified Diseases and Employment) Instrument 2021, and its item 47 is Acute poisoning or toxicity affecting the heart, lungs, liver, kidney, nervous system or blood. As made in March 2021, the employment column for item 47 did not list any chemicals. It said The same as for item 38.

On 10 September 2026 the item 47 amendment instrument, signed by the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations on 9 September, was registered. Its one amendment reads Omit “38”, substitute “41”. It commenced the next day. Its explanatory statement says the instrument rectifies an error in item 47 of Schedule 1 to the Deemed Diseases Instrument.

Item 47 as made, registered 29 March 2021

The same as for item 38.

7

agents: aluminium, barium, beryllium, cobalt, iron oxide, tin, tungsten

At least 5 years of that work, consecutive or not

Item 47 from 11 September 2026

The same as for item 41.

42

chemicals and groups, from acrylonitrile to zinc

No minimum period of employment

What the presumption does for a claim

Under subsection 10(1) of the Act, the explanatory statement says, if an employee suffers a listed disease and was engaged in the listed kind of employment at any time before symptoms first became apparent, employment will be presumed to have contributed to, to a material degree, to the contraction of the disease, unless the contrary is established. The statement says this effectively reverses the onus of proof. The employer decides the claim: under the Act, it says, the employers of such seafarers are responsible for determining liability and paying compensation entitlements.

1. 1. The disease Acute poisoning or toxicity affecting the heart, lungs, liver, kidney, nervous system or blood.
2. 2. The work Employment involving work with one of item 41’s 42 agents, at any time before symptoms first appeared.
3. 3. The result Employment is presumed to have contributed to a material degree, unless the employer establishes the contrary.
4. Outside the list The claim is still open on ordinary proof: on the balance of probabilities, that work contributed to a material degree.

So on the statement’s account the error did not close off a claim. It decided who had to prove what. A seafarer poisoned by, say, carbon monoxide, which is on item 41’s list but not item 38’s, had no presumption to rely on while the cross-reference stood and had to prove the link.

How item 47 came to point at a lung-disease list

Item 38 of the seafarers’ list is Other pneumoconiosis, which the 2021 statement describes as fibrotic lung disease arising from respiratory exposure to its seven agents. Item 41 is Non-infectious hepatitis, and its 42 agents are the ones the 2021 explanatory statement gave for acute poisoning. The September statement says plainly: These are the chemicals listed in item 41, not those in item 38.

Neither statement says how the wrong number got there. The Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988 has its own list, the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation (Specified Diseases and Employment) Instrument 2017, and the March 2026 explanatory statement calls it the corresponding instrument under the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988. We compared the two lists disease by disease. They carry the same diseases in the same order, except that the seafarers’ list has three the 2017 list does not: malaria at item 10, and cholangiocarcinoma and ocular melanoma at items 30 and 31. Every later item sits three places further down. In the 2017 list, non-infectious hepatitis is item 38 and acute poisoning, item 44, also says The same as for item 38. There it points at the 42.

2017 list (SRC Act) 2021 seafarers’ list

9 Tuberculosis9 Tuberculosis

not listed10 Malaria

28 Non-Hodgkins lymphoma29 Non-Hodgkins lymphoma

not listed30 Cholangiocarcinoma

not listed31 Ocular melanoma

35 Other pneumoconiosis: 7 agents, 5 years38 Other pneumoconiosis: 7 agents, 5 years

38 Non-infectious hepatitis: 42 agents41 Non-infectious hepatitis: 42 agents

44 Acute poisoning: The same as for item 38. Points to the 4247 Acute poisoning: The same as for item 38. Pointed to the 7, until 11 Sep 2026

On that comparison, the likeliest explanation is that a cross-reference that was right in the 2017 list was carried into the 2021 list without being renumbered for the three extra items. That is our inference; the instruments do not say it. The 2021 statement does say the list drew on three expert reports, the third commissioned with particular regard to requirements of workers employed under the Seacare scheme, which fits where the extra items came from.

Which chemicals count now, and five that dropped out

Item 41’s list, which item 47 now uses, has 42 entries. Two of them, beryllium and tin, were also on item 38’s list of seven. The other five of the seven are not on item 41’s list, so on the amended text they no longer bring acute poisoning within the presumption at all.

• acrylonitrile
• alcohols
• amino-derivatives of benzene
• antimony
• aromatic hydrocarbons
• arsenic
• benzene
• benzoquinone
• beryllium
• cadmium
• carbon disulphide
• carbon monoxide
• chromium
• copper
• fluorine
• glycols
• hexane
• hydrogen cyanide
• hydrogen sulphide
• ketones
• lead
• manganese
• mercury
• methylene chloride
• mineral acids
• nitric acid esters
• organochlorine compounds
• organophosphate
• osmium
• oxides of nitrogen
• ozone
• phosgene
• phosphorus
• selenium
• styrene
• tin
• toluene
• toxic halogen derivatives of aliphatic
• toxic nitro-derivatives of benzene
• vanadium
• zinc

On item 38’s list only, now outside item 47

• aluminium
• barium
• cobalt
• iron oxide
• tungsten

The statement describes the change only as an extension: it says the amendment will also remove a minimum employment period associated with that exposure. It does not mention the five. Before 11 September, a seafarer with five years’ work with cobalt or aluminium who suffered acute toxicity fell inside the presumption’s wording; now they do not.

The amending instrument has no application or transitional provision. The 2021 instrument applies to a disease suffered on or after the day it commenced, and neither the amendment nor its statement says how a claim for poisoning suffered before 11 September 2026 is treated.

What comes next

The list itself is temporary. As made, it was to repeal itself five years after it commenced. A March 2026 amendment pushed that to 1 April 2028. Its statement says Stakeholders expressed a range of views regarding the approach to the instrument, and that the later date will facilitate full consideration of the issues raised by stakeholders and align it with the 2017 list’s sunsetting date.

1. 29 Mar 2021 Seafarers’ list registered, item 47 reading The same as for item 38.
2. 20 Mar 2026 Amendment registered moving the list’s repeal to 1 April 2028.
3. 10 Sep 2026 Item 47 amendment registered: Omit “38”, substitute “41”.
4. 11 Sep 2026 Correction in force.
5. 1 Apr 2028 The list is repealed, by its own terms as amended.

The industry was not unanimous even on the correction. The September statement records that Maritime Industry Australia Ltd submitted that the proposed amendment was substantive and required further analysis, that the department replied it was meant to return item 47 to its original intention, and that broader consideration of the substance of the Deemed Diseases Instrument remains ongoing.

Our read

This is our view, built on the instruments above. A wrong number in a schedule sounds like housekeeping, and the department treated it as housekeeping. But for more than five years it decided which side of a poisoning claim carried the burden of proof, and for exposures such as carbon monoxide and hydrogen sulphide it put that burden on the worker. It is fixed now, and the fix is welcome.

Two things deserve more than housekeeping. First, the correction narrows as well as widens, and the statement that explains it says only that it extends cover. A duty holder or claims officer reading the statement alone would not learn that cobalt and tungsten are gone. Second, nothing in the instrument says what happens to a poisoning suffered before 11 September. Both could be settled in a line, and the list’s 2028 rewrite is the obvious place to do it. For anyone handling a Seacare claim now, read item 47 against item 41, not the explanatory statement’s summary.