NSW Presumptive Compensation Rights for Firefighters with Specific Cancers

Workers Compensation Amendment (Firefighters' Diseases) Bill 2025

Opposition Bill

5 May 2026: This bill has lapsed and is no longer under discussion.

Legislative Council

Legislative Assembly

Assent

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Topics

cancer disability benefits firefighters occupational health workers compensation

Introduced by: Damien Tudehope MLC (LIB); Gurmesh Singh MP (NAT)

Links to official parliament websites

Official page: progress through parliament

Official page: bill text and explanatory notes

Effects of this bill

If this bill passes, it means that:

Firefighters can claim compensation for several new cancers; this includes cervical, ovarian, pancreatic, thyroid, and uterine cancers after 10 years of service.
Firefighters can claim compensation for mesothelioma, lung, skin, and penile cancers after 15 years of service.
The service period for primary site oesophageal cancer drops to 15 years.
These rights apply to firefighters diagnosed or deceased before the law changed; this excludes diseases contracted before 27 September 2018 unless a claim was already denied on the basis that employment didn't cause the disease.
Firefighters can make a new claim if a previous claim was denied because the disease was not linked to their employment.

The Debate

What different members said when this bill was debated:

Damien Tudehope LIB

“As I pointed out during the debate on the motion to suspend standing orders, unfortunately, I was not in the Chamber last week for the second reading debate on the Workers Compensation Amendment (Firefighters’ Diseases) Bill 2025.”

Official source →

News articles and press releases

Workers Compensation Amendment (Firefighters' Diseases) Bill 2025

The Hon. DAMIEN TUDEHOPE — 2025-08-06

One of the measures in this bill is to reduce the qualifying service period for primary site oesophageal cancer to a more reasonable 15 years. This change was recommended by Dr Tim Driscoll in a 2020 review of the firefighter provisions in the Commonwealth’s Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988 and adopted by the Commonwealth in 2022 and Queensland in 2024. The previous period of 25 years was considered anomalous, with no scientific basis. One of the new cancers to be added is malignant mesothelioma. In its 2021 review, the International Association of Cancer Research [IACR] found: