The Court declined to refer a workers' compensation appeal directly to the Full Court under r 703(4), holding that the discretion to refer is unfettered but confined by the proper construction of the conferring provision. Shanahan CJ confirmed that the Full Court is primarily a court of appeal and that bypassing a single judge deprives the Full Court of the benefit of that judge's analysis; difficulty, importance, or broad consequences of a question of law are not individually or collectively sufficient to warrant referral, particularly where there is no urgency and no unresolved questions of fact. The underlying substantive question — the proper construction of s 86(1)(b) of the Workers Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988 (Tas) regarding termination versus reduction of entitlements — remains unresolved and will proceed to a single judge hearing.
The full text is available to signed-in members.