The unholy alliance against new laws that ‘disproportionately’ impact women

NSW Liberal MPs and the unions representing nurses and teachers have found common ground in their opposition to the Minns government’s overhaul of workers’ compensation laws, warning women workers would be significantly and unfairly affected by the proposed changes.

The government is on a collision course with unions, lawyers and mental health experts as it prepares to introduce legislation next week to amend the laws, requiring workers with psychological injuries to take claims to the Industrial Relations Commission before seeking compensation.

Critics of the government’s workers’ compensation changes say women, including nurses and teachers, will be disproportionately impacted.Credit: Istock

The Liberals are yet to decide how they will vote on the government’s new laws until they see the bill and discuss it in shadow cabinet. However, a dissenting statement to an inquiry report from Liberal committee members Damien Tudehope and Susan Carter indicates the party’s thinking.

In a statement attached to the two-volume report from last week’s one-day snap parliamentary inquiry into compensation changes, Carter said, “good reform should be gender-neutral”.

“It certainly should not disadvantage women vis-a-vis men – as these ‘reforms’ appear to do,” Carter’s statement said. “As a community we are engaged in building a safer and more respectful community for women.

“However, the changes proposed appear to be moving in the opposite direction.”

The NSW Nurses and Midwives Association said that between 2013-15 and 2019-21 there was a 150 per cent increase in psychological injury claims in the nursing workforce, the highest rate of any profession.

General-secretary Shaye Candish said the proposed changes would “disproportionately impact nurses and midwives who are the largest cohort of workers with psychological injury claims”.

“The NSW government is arguably the single largest employer of women in the country. Women make up over 60 per cent of the state’s public sector workforce, and nurses and midwives are the single largest work group,” Candish said.

“We are calling on the government to confirm whether a gender impact assessment has been conducted on the proposed reform and, if not, urgently require that [such an assessment] be carried out.”

NSW Treasury guidelines state all “government agencies are required to prepare gender impact assessments for new policy proposals”.

“This recognises the important role the NSW government plays in ensuring the needs of all genders are understood and addressed in the development of public policy,” the guidelines say.

Meanwhile, the NSW Teachers Federation said it was “women members who will suffer the most from these changes” in a system already burdened with burnout and “skyrocketing resignation rates”.

“The federation cannot ignore the evidence that the NSW treasurer’s attack on mental health support is gendered. Of the federation’s approximately 60,000 members, 80 per cent are women,” the federation said in a submission to the inquiry.

There has been widespread opposition to the proposed overhaul, although it has won support from the state’s business lobby. Business NSW chief Daniel Hunter has described workers’ compensation as “out of control” and claimed workers were abusing the scheme by lodging claims over “low-level workplace disputes and underperformance”.

NSW Treasurer Daniel Mookhey fronted the inquiry last week.Credit: Sam Mooy

Despite the opposition to the changes, Treasurer Daniel Mookhey has repeatedly stressed that the government has so far only released an exposure bill and would take on board the findings of the one-day inquiry, which heard from almost 40 witnesses.

“The state needs to make a decisive shift towards fostering a culture of prevention,” Mookhey told the inquiry. “Us parliamentarians need to lead it.”

“Ultimately, the best workers’ compensation scheme is one no one ever needs to use. Until that is possible, I urge parliament to act to save the scheme we have and fight to stop people from being injured in the first place.”

Mental health compensation claims have doubled in the past six years, placing financial pressure on the state’s nominal insurer, icare. This will push insurance premiums up by 36 per cent over the three years from 2026, the government says.

The government says the changes – which would also lift the level of Whole Person Impairment needed to claim lump sum damages from employers for psychological injuries from 15 to 30 per cent, – are critical due to the rising number of mental health claims and falling return-to-work rates.

The inquiry’s 700-page report, tabled late on Friday, makes no specific recommendations other than to urge the “government take note of the evidence received throughout the course of the inquiry when preparing the final bill(s).”

Committee chair Labor MLC Greg Donnelly said there would “be critics of the report who will deride it as a tick-and-flick or rubber-stamp exercise”.

“The timeframe did not permit the committee to undertake detailed examination and analysis of the volume of evidence, let alone prepare thorough and considered commentary, findings and recommendations,” Donnelly’s foreword said.

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