‘I will not be the patsy for this government’: Premier declares workers’ comp fight over after dramatic loss

NSW Premier Chris Minns has declared efforts to radically reform the state’s workers’ compensation scheme are over after the government lost a dramatic vote early on Friday morning when one of the key independents flipped.

After taking carriage of a series of amendments aimed at breaking a months-long deadlock over workers’ compensation, independent MP Taylor Martin told parliament on Thursday night: “I will not be the patsy for this government.”

Debate in the upper house finished about 6am on Friday after a marathon all-night session. Hours later, Minns said efforts to limit workers’ compensation insurance premium rises were “over” and he attacked the Coalition as the “so-called party of small business”.

NSW Premier Chris Minns, pictured earlier this week, has declared attempts to reform the workers’ compensation scheme over.Credit: Sam Mooy

Minns said he had been met by “resistance and incompetence” from opposition Treasury spokesman Damien Tudehope, saying he appeared unable to “grapple with some of the challenges facing NSW businesses”.

The vote came five months after the government first tried to legislate its contentious reforms of the workers’ compensation system. The crux of disagreement among the government, Coalition, Greens and crossbench has been the proposal to severely curtail injured workers’ access to the scheme.

Late last week, two independents, Sydney MP Alex Greenwich and Martin, had proposed a compromise solution to break the deadlock. The compromise would have seen the state’s chief psychiatrist tasked with devising an alternative system to “determine psychological impairment”.

Independent upper house MP Taylor Martin.Credit: James Brickwood

Tudehope, who had not slept when he stood up to speak after lunchtime, claimed “a victory for seriously injured workers” and questioned why the government thought it was appropriate to cut off society’s most vulnerable “to make savings”.

After a sustained attack by Business NSW over his opposition to the government’s reforms, Tudehope conceded the campaign had caused concern to his colleagues. But he said he was proud of the way his party had remained resolute in the face of intense external pressure.

“I will stand with [injured workers], and if it means that there is some impact on the Coalition’s popularity, I think we can be proud that we did not give into the pressure from those organisations in respect of this immoral legislation,” he said.

Martin walked away from the amendments just before 9pm on Thursday. In his speech, the independent said he had “not heard a single convincing argument today or another time” about the need to curtail access to long-term medical payments for psychologically injured workers.

“If taking away workers’ protections and compensation matters so much to the Minns government’s budget, then one of its members in the lower house who signed the bloody pledge can move to rip off those workers and set the bar so high that they will no longer have any cover,” he said.

“I will not be the patsy for this government.”

“If the Labor government really needs to take away workers’ compensation to plug the holes in its budget, it should take that to an election and seek that mandate from the public. According to its pledge, the only mandate that the Minns government has on this issue is to support workers unable to return to work.”

“I do not know how members supporting that can sleep at night,” Martin said.

The remarkable about-face in the Legislative Chamber left the government scrambling for another upper house MP to introduce the amendments in Martin’s stead. But, during the debate, Treasurer Daniel Mookhey acknowledged the eleventh-hour flip meant the razor-thin numbers were now against him.

Earlier on Thursday, Greenwich had stood at a press conference alongside independent MP Joe McGirr, business leaders and disability businesses, declaring he was confident his circuit-breaker had the numbers to pass through the upper house.

But after Martin walked away, Legislative Council deputy president Rod Roberts declared the compromise amendments could not be voted on, leaving only the government’s original proposal for a vote.

The government’s reforms focused on doubling the scheme’s minimum Whole of Person Impairment level, a measurement of how much an injury has permanently reduced a person’s function, to 31 per cent.

The outcome is a bitter blow for the government. Mookhey had spent months arguing the proposed reforms were necessary to ensure the scheme’s financial sustainability and limit proposed premium hikes for businesses.

Debate over the legislation strayed into the early hours of Friday morning, but saw a number of amendments proposed by the Coalition, independent MP Mark Latham and the Greens knocked back.

Greenwich said he was “deeply disappointed” that the compromise deal had fallen apart at the last minute.

“That is Mr Martin’s prerogative,” he said.

“The reality now is that unless the Coalition changes their position, non-profits will have to decide what services to cut ahead of Christmas, and Business NSW tells us one in five small businesses will close.

“This is serious, and parliament shouldn’t rise for the year until we resolve this stalemate. If we don’t do our job, people across NSW will start losing their jobs.”

Unions NSW secretary Mark Morey welcomed the outcome and called on the government to “put away its sledgehammer and rediscover compassion and dignity for traumatised and vulnerable workers”.

Business NSW chief executive Dan Hunter called on MPs to resolve the impasse to ensure businesses did not go into Christmas with the threat of increased premiums hanging over their head.

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