The people below are hypothetical and the figures are illustrative, calculated at the stated PIAWE using the percentages in the SIRA guide. Your own numbers turn on your PIAWE and your assessment.
Maria, 44, ICU nurse: a bullying claim on the relevant conduct pathway
Maria’s PIAWE is $1,800. After eight months of documented, escalating conduct from a supervisor (rosters changed to sabotage her, ridicule in handovers, exclusion from training), her psychiatrist diagnoses major depression. She lodges the full relevant conduct claim form on 1 September 2026 with dates, instances, witnesses and her diary. While the insurer investigates she has no capacity for work, so interim payments run at 75 per cent of PIAWE: $1,350 a week, well under the $2,662.10 cap, and her psychologist sessions are covered inside the $7,500 interim medical allowance. The insurer accepts liability on day 42. Her rate rises to 95 per cent of PIAWE, $1,710 a week, and within 21 days the insurer backpays the difference: $360 a week for six weeks, $2,160. After week 13 on the standard rate structure her payment steps down to 80 per cent, $1,440 a week, while she has no capacity. If her eventual single assessment lands at 16 per cent WPI she adds a section 66 lump sum (threshold 15 per cent, unchanged), but with WPI below 25 per cent her payments still end by week 130 and no damages claim is available, whatever her employer’s negligence.
Dave, 31, service station attendant: an armed robbery on the other relevant events pathway
Dave, PIAWE $1,400, is held at knifepoint during a night shift in August 2026 and develops PTSD. An act or threat of violence is a relevant event with an obvious real and direct connection to his job, so there is no 42-day conduct investigation: provisional weekly payments must start within 7 days of notification, at 95 per cent of PIAWE, $1,330 a week for the first 13 weeks, then 80 per cent, $1,120, while he cannot work, with up to $10,000 of provisional medical treatment. A year later his single assessment, taken after independent legal advice and when his psychiatrist says he has stabilised, returns 27 per cent WPI. Because he notified in 2026, his damages threshold is 25 per cent: he clears it, and since his employer had removed the store’s security screens and ignored two prior incidents, he has a viable work injury damages claim for his past and future lost earnings, paid as a single lump sum that ends his weekly payments. Had he waited to notify until after 1 July 2027, the bar would have been “more than 26 per cent” and his margin would have thinned to a single point.
Priya, 38, project manager: chronic overwork that does not pass the gateway
Priya burns out after eighteen months of understaffing and friction with her director. Her GP diagnoses an adjustment disorder. Pre-reform, employment as a substantial contributing factor would likely have carried her claim. Now the insurer asks: which relevant event? Personality conflict is expressly outside the list. Excessive work demands is arguable, but it is tested objectively against her role, its seniority, industry practice and staffing, and demands that are high yet within the ordinary scope of a senior role will not qualify; her director’s conduct, assessed objectively, does not reach the definition of bullying. Her claim is declined. Her options sit outside workers compensation: a stop-bullying or stop-sexual-harassment application to the Fair Work Commission while she remains employed, a hazard report to SafeWork NSW, a Medicare mental health care plan for treatment, income protection through her superannuation, and, if she is pushed out, general protections or unfair dismissal routes with their own strict time limits.
