Commonwealth Consolidated Acts Commonwealth Consolidated Acts(1) For the purposes of calculating the normal weekly earnings of an employee before an injury, a reference in section 8 to the relevant period is, subject to this section, a reference to the latest period of 2 weeks before the date of the injury during which the employee was continuously employed by the Commonwealth.
(2) Subject to subsection (3), if, during the period referred to in subsection (1), the minimum amount per week payable to an employee in respect of his or her employment by the Commonwealth was varied as a result of:
(a) the operation of a law of the Commonwealth or of a State or Territory; or
(b) the making, alteration or operation of an award, order, determination or industrial agreement, or the doing of any other act or thing, under such a law;
any part of that period that occurred before the variation, or last variation, took place shall be disregarded for the purposes of calculating the relevant period.
(3) Where in any case the application of subsection (2) would require that a period be disregarded for the purposes of calculating the relevant period in relation to an employee, and as a result of disregarding that period:
(a) it would be impracticable to calculate under section 8 the normal weekly earnings of the employee before an injury; or
(b) the normal weekly earnings as so calculated would not fairly represent the weekly rate at which the employee was being paid in respect of his or her employment by the Commonwealth before the injury;
subsection (2) shall not apply in that case, but the normal weekly earnings of the employee during that period shall be taken to be the amount that would have been his or her normal weekly earnings during that period if the variation had taken effect at the beginning of that period.
(4) If, during any part of the period calculated under the preceding subsections, the employee's earnings were reduced, or the employee did not receive any earnings, because of absence from his or her employment for any reason, that part of that period shall be disregarded for the purposes of calculating the relevant period.