NSW Labor to push workers’ comp reforms despite damning inquiry report
NSW Labor will forge ahead with controversial workers' compensation reforms despite a damning inquiry report, setting up a fierce parliamentary battle next week.
Labor will push ahead with attempts to usher in sweeping reforms to workers compensation in NSW despite a scathing report from a state government inquiry slamming the proposed changes.
The report, released on Monday, also called for a key tranche of Labor’s reform – doubling the Whole Person Impairment level for psychological injuries from 15 to 31 per cent – to be dumped, setting up a bitter clash in the NSW parliament next week as Labor attempts to pass its bill.
Opposition Treasury spokesman Damien Tudehope said the inquiry found attempts to solve the ballooning cost of workers compensation scheme “by taking away entitlements from seriously injured workers … is a barbaric way” to reform the system.
Mr Tudehope said the opposition would support amendments tightening entry to the workers’ compensation scheme in a bid to deliver “substantial savings”.
He said “tightening the definitions” around what constitutes bullying, sexual harassment and excessive worker will “make it harder to get into the scheme and to make claims on the scheme at the front end”.
A package of amendments previously moved by Mr Tudehope and independent upper house MP Mark Latham, known as the Tudehope-Latham amendments, included a bid to tighten regulations around sexual harassment claims, including that a person who makes a sexual advance at a co-worker would have to have known their advance was unwelcome for the claim to go ahead.
Mr Tudehope cited the federal government’s efforts to curtail new entrants to the National Disability Insurance Scheme – by creating new systems outside the scheme – as an example of work that could be done to stop new entrants from the outset.
He also set up a stoush with business groups, which have largely supported the reforms over concerns premiums could rise by up to 36 per cent without major changes. He said he believed “big business has been very easily seduced by the promise of lower premiums”.
“Anyone who’s offered … larger profits will put up their hand for larger profits tomorrow. I get that. But if I say to you, I want larger profits at the expense of seriously injured workers, surely they pause and … say ‘no’,” he said.
The government intends to stand by its reforms, with Labor members on the inquiry’s committee saying the report “engages in political commentary” and fails to evaluate the cost of insurance premiums on small businesses.
“The committee heard strong evidence that the scheme is not sustainable in its current form … There is no dispute that some significant reform will be required,” the Labor MPs wrote in their response. “It provides ongoing support for the most seriously injured workers while improving return-to-work outcomes.”
It came as the country’s peak business body pressured the opposition to support the reforms.
The Business Council of Australia lodged a submission with the state inquiry supporting the workers’ comp reforms but objecting to new measures that would allow union representatives into workplaces to check if operating systems, including ones using artificial intelligence, were heaping extra work onto employees.
“These reforms are about getting the balance right; supporting injured employees while ensuring a fair and sustainable system that doesn’t stifle business investment and competitiveness,” BCA general counsel Kat Eather said.
She said passing the first bill would give “greater clarity” on areas such as psychological injuries and compensation relating to injuries from sexual harassment and bullying.
“If these changes are not made in NSW, then premium pressures will increase the cost of doing business and could impact prices, jobs and investment,” she said.
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