Injured workers will be re-defined, and able to sue their bosses, under an overhaul of South Australia's WorkCover regime.

Some critics have welcomed the changes, saying the system had itself been damaging many workers’ health.

The South Australian Government says it will save businesses $180 million a year by targeting false claimants, and writing new legal definitions for ‘seriously injured’ and ‘less-seriously injured’ workers.

Less-seriously injured workers will be taken off the benefit scheme automatically after two years, which has allowed higher compensation payments for those with worse conditions.

Attorney-General John Rau says the state’s current $1.4 billion unfunded liability will drop to just $100 million after the changes.

Mr Rau says the reform will stop people using compensation like a welfare system.

“People are rewarded by being sick, not being rewarded by getting better," he said.

“The system makes people sick.”

“For those people who are not the profoundly disabled people ... at the end of a maximum of two year period, income maintenance ends.”

The SA Attorney-General also said the changes will bring more legal rights for workers injured by company negligence.

“If an employer is negligent and as a result of that negligence there employee is injured, that employee would have a right to seek damages for that injury,” Rau said.

Lawyer Steven Dolphin says the will bring some balance to worksites and offices.

“Certainly in my experience there have been many injured workers who have sustained their injuries through negligence at work,” he said.

“As the Act currently stands, they are not able to recoup compensation for that negligence. Reintroducing the right to sue for negligence is to be welcomed.”

South Australian Independent MLC Ann Bressington has been one of the strongest opponents of the previous system, saying the conditions of the scheme had driven some workers to suicide.

Bressington says the impact on injured workers is rarely made public, but can be disastrous for many.

“Rarely do we want to talk about, or even put on the record, about injured workers committing suicide,” she said.

“Because they are harassed, bullied, intimidated, dragged through years and years and years of litigation rather than get what they are rightfully entitled to.”