Mike Symon (Deakin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I speak in support of the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2011. A bill similar to this, the Occupational Health and Safety and Other Legislation Bill 2009, was introduced into the previous parliament on 26 November 2009 but lapsed due to the proroguing of parliament on 19 July last year. Consequently I have been waiting a long time to speak on this bill—and finally the day has arrived.

Occupational health and safety and workers compensation are greatly important to me. Before coming to this place, I spent many years as both an occupational health and safety representative and a professional in that area as well. My particular concern was the construction industry, which to this day still has one of the highest rates of injury, death and claims when it comes to workers compensation. A lot of that comes about as a result of the itinerant nature of the industry, and that is going to be an ongoing problem. Anything we can do at the Commonwealth level, especially for those companies that are covered by Comcare, is always a good improvement.

While this bill itself does not make major changes, it is part of a much bigger and broader package of reforms that the Labor government has undertaken in the area of workplace relations and occupational health and safety. The centrepiece of those reforms was the implementation of the Fair Work Act in the previous parliament. And we also saw in 2009 the establishment of Safe Work Australia, an Australian government statutory agency with primary responsibility for improving health and safety at work and workers' compensation arrangements across Australia. I am proud of the work that the Labor government has undertaken in working towards national standards in such important areas, and I look forward to the harmonisation process reaching completion. It has been a long road and it has required the coming together of many different elements. But it is actually going to happen, and that is a great thing.

The bill before the House introduces a number of amendments to the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988 to make some changes to the Comcare scheme as well as some other associated changes. In 2009-10 the Comcare scheme covered 371, 300 employees and received 10,551 claims, of which 8,777 were accepted. A total of $203 million was paid to claimants and the return to work rate of 93 per cent was higher than the national average of 85 per cent for other schemes.

The bill follows the government's 2008 review into the Comcare scheme, which was a commitment made by the Labor Party in the lead-up to the 2007 election. That review focused especially on the self-insurance arrangements, which allowed for the entry of private sector corporations into the Comcare scheme, and whether the scheme was providing suitable arrangements for self-insurers and their employees. On 11 December 2007 the government placed a moratorium on private corporations seeking to join the scheme. This had the effect of freezing the number of private companies in the scheme. I have previously spoken in this place of my concerns about Comcare in the private sector—specifically, the number of on-site inspections conducted compared to state based compensation schemes. There are several changes that are proposed in this bill. Firstly, it reintroduces workers' compensation for claims arising from off-site recess injuries. I think this is a rather big area. Listening to the last speaker and the opposition's concerns about off-site injuries I would like to say that maybe they should try it themselves. For many, many years I worked off-site and for many, many years I did not have lunch facilities or rest break facilities. Being in a service industry, many times the only place you could buy food or go to the toilet was off-site. You had to leave your place of work, drive up the street to find a public toilet or a food outlet. I do not think that should be held against anyone whilst at work. They also deserve coverage. That may be just walking to the shop, as I said, it may be driving to the shop, it may be going elsewhere to a public convenience, but these things have to be done during the course of the working day. Bringing such claims back under Comcare brings the scheme into line with most other jurisdictions, other than South Australia and Tasmania. It is also important to note, as I have said, that not everyone has access to facilities that most of us take for granted, and those people should not be forgotten.

This amendment bill also places specified time limits within which compensation claims must be dealt with. There are two obvious benefits to this change. Firstly, it provides greater certainty for people lodging a claim. When workers lodge claims it is usually a very stressful situation. There are a lot of things going on, a lot of changes from the ordinary, and the impacts that has on the mental state of the worker is not always apparent. Depending on the seriousness of their injury, sometimes it can be particularly severe. For a worker to know that their claim will be handled within a specified time frame hopefully provides some minor relief for people who are, unfortunately, in such a situation. Secondly, it is logical to believe that claims that are dealt with quickly will be less costly. The introduction of statutory time limits is an improvement to the Comcare scheme.

The bill also amends the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988 to allow for medical and related costs to be paid when payment of other compensation has been suspended. Weekly compensation benefits that are not for medical purposes, such as payment for loss of wages, can be suspended if a worker refuses to attend rehabilitation for their injury. While suspending payments provides an incentive for injured workers to fulfil their requirements under the scheme, the suspension of payments for medical expenses would seem to be taking this a step too far, and is probably quite counterproductive. If someone is injured on the job, they are entitled to the appropriate treatment and care that will allow them to return to work as soon as possible. Denying them the payment for such treatment will only impede this goal. This revised system strikes an appropriate balance between incentives and penalties—a 'carrot and stick' approach.

The bill also restores Comcare's ability to access the Consolidated Revenue Fund to pay for workers compensation claims and expenses arising from long latency injuries claims. This access to funding was shut off in 2006 as an indirect result of a decision of the Federal Court. Examples of long latency injury claims are asbestosis and mesothelioma, many cases of which may not become apparent for decades after the initial exposure. It is not only decades; sometimes people do not even know which employer may have been the source of that exposure, because it is so long between the time of contracting the disease and any signs of it showing.

This provision in the bill will allow Comcare to access consolidated revenue for payment of its liabilities relating to events which happened before 1 December 1988, but which did not result in an injury until after that date. That certainly covers the examples I have noted. Restoring Comcare's access to the Consolidated Revenue Fund for such injuries is a minor administrative change, but it is one that makes sense given the purposes of the Comcare scheme.

Finally, there is a provision in the bill that allows for continuous workers' compensation for employees who are working overseas and who are in a declared place. The Australian Civilian Corps and the employment of DFAT staff in high risk areas such as Afghanistan and Iraq are examples where this cover could apply. The effect of these provisions is that employees in declared places or a declared class of employee will have access to 24/7 workers compensation for the duration of the overseas employment with the usual exceptions that apply to workers compensation such as serious and wilful misconduct, intentional self-inflicted injury and a few other exceptions.

This bill makes some small but significant changes to the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988 that will provide better outcomes for workers employed by the Commonwealth government and those private businesses that are covered by the Comcare scheme. I welcome the changes and I look forward to continued progress in this important area. I commend the bill to the House.

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