Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for External Territories) Share this | Hansard source

I have followed this debate across the chamber and I am sad that we had the member for Lyons refer to the insidious creep of health and safety. You would have thought that even the most conservative member of this parliament would understand the importance of health and safety in the workplace, the need to regulate it properly and look after the interests of workers—as well as employers, I might say.

The intent of this bill is very clear, to me at least. It will tear away safety protections for many all over this country. It will have the effect of directly and indirectly risking the workplace health and safety of Australian workers in every state and territory. It will remove the rights of workers to a fair and reasonable cover when they suffer workplace injury or illness, if their employer comes under this legislation. This is from a government who, as we were reminded before the last election, said there would be no changes to workplace relations in their first term. This is a change to workplace relations, let there be no doubt about it.

We know that in the preparation of this proposal there has been no adequate consultation with those who will be affected by it or their representatives. It was not flagged before the election; it is not part of their election policy; and it is legislation without a mandate but also without any real policy justification. It undercuts all existing workers compensation around this country—that is what its effect will be.

We know that workers compensation legislation should have two main principles: to prevent work-related injury or illness from occurring in the first place; and to provide fair benefits to help and compensate those workers who suffer injury or illness as a result of their work. This will do precisely the opposite. It is indeed a sad indictment of this government and of those who sit on the government benches, because it will mean that there will be workers who will suffer the consequences of work injuries for the rest of their lives without any assistance from a workers compensation scheme, potentially. It means that potentially, workers doing the same job but with a different employer, who suffer a similar injury or injuries, will have different workers compensation rights and different health and safety standards applied to them—even though they might live in the same jurisdiction. How can this be sustainable? The worker who is covered by Comcare will have fewer rights and fewer health and safety protections, all in the name of small savings, apparently, and of cutting red tape.

We have heard discussion around the issue of no coverage under this legislation for ordinary recess breaks. How can anyone contemplate that you should excise recess breaks out of a workers compensation arrangement? It is worthwhile contemplating for a moment the history of this: the Hawke government in 1998—and I was a member of that government; I remember the debates around the country at the time—established the Comcare scheme, which protected workers temporarily absent from work during an ordinary recess like a lunch break. That was in 1988. Is it any surprise to us that in 2007, under the Howard government's Work Choices scheme, this was removed? So why should we be surprised that the Abbott government chooses to reintroduce this precise proposal—to exempt ordinary recess breaks from coverage? That is just a damnation.

It is also proposed in this bill, as we know now, that there be no coverage for death and serious and permanent injury if wilful misconduct is alleged. What a mean and gratuitous proposal this is. Nearly all jurisdictions across this country have exclusionary provision that deny compensation for injuries caused by wilful misconduct; however, in the case of a death or serious and permanent incapacity, Australian workers compensation schemes have historically, over tens of years, made an exception. This bill, if passed, would mean that Comcare will be the only workers compensation scheme in the country to exclude assistance in cases of deceased or seriously permanently incapacitated workers, if the death or incapacity happened as a result of what is described as 'wilful misconduct'. This is really hard to understand. What penny-pinching government would want to deny the capacity for the family of someone who is deceased or permanently incapacitated to have access to support? But that is precisely what this legislation does. And this also: Comcare currently denies workers compensation to those who voluntarily and unreasonably submit to a normal risk or injury during an ordinary recess. This bill extends that conclusion to usual working hours. This change means that what is and is not a voluntary assumption of abnormal risk when undertaking work will be the subject of endless and costly legal disputation. It means no protection for vulnerable workers; those who are asked or directed to do dangerous jobs by their coworkers, who are afraid of losing their jobs. It means—and I notice that some people have just arrived in the gallery—no protection for police, or for nurses, or for workers who are exposed to risk as part of their normal working day. Some workers who are injured or ill because of their job may have no workers compensation whatsoever: no assistance with medical bills, no support for rehabilitation, and no income.

It is not my intention to traverse the whole of the legislation, because others have done that. But I want to go to some of the submissions to the Senate inquiry into this bill. In particular, I want to go to the submission from the Northern Territory government. I do it for two reasons: firstly, I think it is not a bad submission, because it raises some serious questions; and secondly, it makes it very clear how this bill is discriminatory in its effect and impacts upon every community across the country. In that submission the Northern Territory government say: 'It is difficult to estimate how many employers would pursue an option to participate in the Comcare scheme but the potential consequence could be: …loss of an NT based claims service for injured workers.' That is really important, because what they are concerned about is the size of the premium pool, the potential for rates to increase, and the cost of insurance going up. I mention that because I think it is a very good submission, in that context. Yet at the same time, this week—this very week—the Northern Territory government of its own volition has taken the step of selling off the Territory Insurance Office to Allianz. This is going to mean that on the one hand we have them saying, 'we are concerned about this piece of Commonwealth legislation which could have a significant impact on people who need insurance on the Northern Territory for workers compensation'—employers and employees—and on the other hand they are actually selling the Territory Insurance Office—a government insurance office. It will—absolutely—mean that premium rates across the Northern Territory will go up, and that some insurance will not be available. There is real concern about the impact of that stupid decision—that really asinine decision—by the Northern Territory government, and the impact it will have on communities across the Northern Territory, including the people of Darwin, who will potentially suffer some cyclonic event into the future; or floods in Alice Springs; or floods in Katherine. We know that some of these products which are currently supplied and underwritten by the Northern Territory government through the Territory Insurance Office are potentially not going to be provided into the future. And if they are provided, we can absolutely guarantee—absolutely—that every Northern Territory insurance holder who is under the TIO insurance policies and is now transferred to Allianz will have their rates increased, we think by anything up to 200 or 300 per cent. That is a condemnation.

Deputy Speaker, if you accept on the one hand the importance of the submission that the Northern Territory government has made, around this insurance issue of Comcare in the Northern Territory, and around this bill, you have to say to yourself: how can they do that then—and now actually sell off the Territory Insurance Office? The Northern Territory community is awake to them and the Northern Territory community will mark them down. I am positive that they will get the retribution they properly deserve when the next Northern Territory general election comes along.

It is very clear to us that this piece of legislation should not be supported. It is unfair, anomalous and confusing for small business and for workers. Injured workers lose rights and benefits. It weakens occupational health and safety. It reintroduces three unfair and unnecessary exclusions to injured workers claiming workers compensation. It saves little, if any, money. We will oppose this bill.

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