Government “disturbed” by findings of Victorian Ombudsman’s WorkSafe investigation
Victoria’s worker compensation scheme has been slammed for a second time by the Victorian Ombudsman, with injured workers unnecessarily surveilled and footy tickets handed to agents trying to boost profits.
VIC News
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WorkSafe has been blasted by the Victorian Ombudsman for unnecessarily surveilling injured workers, ignoring the advice of doctors and celebrating “wins” when claims were terminated.
Three years after Ombudsman Deborah Glass released a scathing report about WorkSafe’s handling of complex claims, she has now released a second report which questions whether anything has changed.
“This is the first time I have launched a fresh investigation into the same issue. All Ombudsman complaints involve people’s individual stories, but the WorkSafe complaints were and are particularly painful,” Ms Glass said.
“I said in 2016 these cases involve people’s lives, and the human cost should never be forgotten; that human cost continues to this day.”
The new investigation, tabled in state parliament today, reveals:
• The practices of WorkSafe’s commercial agents have been driven underground, with staff “told to be careful what they put in writing — in case the Ombudsman sees it”.
• One agent quizzed staff on the maximum amount of money they could make and offered free AFL tickets to staff who responded first, telling them “we cannot take our foot off the accelerator”.
• Agents terminated complex claims after “cherry picking evidence”, relying on “unclear, contradictory or inconclusive” advice and “doctor shopping”.
• Surveillance of injured workers was carried out “without a shred of evidence to justify it”. In one case, an injured aged care worker realised she was being followed, but the agent denied using surveillance and told her to report it to police.
• Agents continued to focus on terminating claims to maximise profits. One worker emailed a colleague about making $75,000 in a day, and joked it had been “deposited in your offshore Cayman Island account”.
• Workers were forced to participate in rehabilitation at “inappropriate stages of their recovery” — such as a worker who was experiencing severe psychotic hallucinations.
Ms Glass launched her follow-up probe in May last year, having received 700 complaints in 2017/18 and another 800 complaints in 2018/19.
She reviewed cases involving teachers, nurses, police officers, aged care workers, truck drivers and tradesmen.
“I said in 2016 that the system needs a better safety net for the vulnerable. In 2019 we need it more than ever. If the problems are persisting despite the adoption of my previous recommendations, the reforms were plainly not fundamental enough,” she said.
“The financial viability of the scheme is imperative; but the balance between financial sustainability and fairness for injured workers has tilted too far away from the latter. It is time for the change that makes a difference.”
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As a result of the investigation, WorkSafe and its agents have already withdrawn 30 decisions across 19 claims and back-paid about $70,000 to two injured workers.
In response to the report, Attorney-General Hill Hennessy said she was “disturbed” by the findings and shared the Ombudsman’s concerns about the scheme “failing too many injured workers with complex claims”.
She promised to launch an independent review of the current model, and said she had established a monitoring and oversight committee which met for the first time in October.
WorkSafe chief Colin Radford accepted Ms Glass’s recommendations, saying it took them “extremely seriously” and had made “strenuous efforts” to improve its practices.