Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party, Minister for Workforce Participation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the amendments be agreed to.

The Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2006 amends the Safety Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988—the SRC Act—primarily to maintain the integrity of the Commonwealth workers compensation scheme and to facilitate the provision of benefits under the scheme. During the course of the debate in the Senate, opposition senators tried to make much of the fact that Comcare’s actual claims costs have declined over the past few years, saying that the amendments proposed in this bill are all about denying injured workers their basic entitlements and increasing their dependence on the public health and welfare systems. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth.

The decline in Comcare’s actual claims costs is not an accurate indicator of the cost pressures facing the Comcare scheme. The Comcare scheme is a long-tail scheme with incapacity benefits payable to age 65 and medical benefits for whole of life. The total expenditure by Comcare each year in meeting the costs of all claims includes the costs of injuries and diseases which may have occurred several decades ago. The current costs of these old claims is irrelevant in examining the current cost pressures facing the scheme today—costs which must be paid for by employers through their premiums.

The premium rate, which reflects the lifetime costs of injuries and disease that are occurring now, is a much better indicator of current and future cost pressures facing the Comcare scheme. Comcare’s average premium rate has increased by nearly 60 per cent since 2002-03. While Comcare’s premium rate is somewhat lower than comparable schemes, it has been rising at a time when a number of other jurisdictions have been reducing their premiums. Even though the overall number of claims accepted by Comcare has been falling, there has been a significant increase in recent years in the number of high-cost claims, especially those arising from psychological injuries—often known as mental stress claims. The number of accepted disease claims, which are also high-cost claims, has been increasing. For example, mental stress claims account for 7.6 per cent of the total number of all claims in 2005-06 but now represent nearly a third of the total cost of all claims accepted by the scheme.

The costs of accepted disease claims have risen from around $47 million in 2001-02 to nearly $105 million in 2005-06. Many of these claims have occurred in circumstances where work has made only a very small contribution to the injury or disease, contrary to the original intention of the act. The main amendments contained in the bill seek to address these issues by ensuring that only the costs associated with work related injuries are met by Comcare and funded by premium payers and ultimately the taxpayer.

The bill will amend the definitions of ‘disease’ and ‘injury’, which are of central importance in the SRC Act, to strengthen the connection between the employee’s employment and the employee’s eligibility for workers compensation under the scheme. The bill does this in two ways. First of all, the bill amends the definition of ‘disease’ to ensure that Comcare is not liable to pay compensation for diseases which have little if any connection with employment. The amendment requires that an employee’s employment must have contributed in a significant way to the contraction or aggravation of the employee’s ailment before compensation is payable. This replaces a current test which requires a material contribution by employment to the disease before compensation is payable. This amendment is consistent with every other workers compensation scheme in Australia other than that of the Northern Territory.

Secondly, the bill amends the definition of ‘injury’ to expand and update the existing exclusionary provisions to prevent workers compensation being payable in respect of an injury, usually a psychological injury, arising from legitimate administration or administrative action by management. This would include, for example, reasonable appraisal of the employee’s performance and reasonable counselling action taken in respect of the employee’s employment. The reasonableness requirement is not novel; it is a feature of comparable legislation in most jurisdictions across the country, and the term is used in many other laws for the simple reason that there often is not a better alternative. It should be remembered too that the amendment will limit the potential for abuse of the scheme by employees dissatisfied with management decisions.

The bill also amends the provision that sets out the circumstances in which an injury to an employee may be treated as having arisen out of, or in the course of, his or her employment. Specifically the amendments will remove coverage for injuries sustained by employees during journeys between home and work and during recess breaks undertaken away from the employer’s premises—for example, lunch breaks during which an employee leaves the employer’s premises to go shopping. Again, this is not novel. (Extension of time granted) The Victorian, South Australian, Tasmanian and Western Australians workers compensation schemes do not allow journey claims.

These amendments are also consistent with recommendations made by the Productivity Commission in its March 2004 report on national workers compensation and occupational health and safety frameworks. The Productivity Commission recommended that coverage of journeys to and from work not be provided and that recess breaks and work related events should be restricted to those at workplaces and at employer sanctioned events. The fundamental commonsense principle underlying the Productivity Commission’s recommendation was that employers should only be held liable for conduct that they are in a position to control. Employers cannot control circumstances associated with journeys to and from work or recess breaks taken away from their premises, and it is not appropriate for injuries sustained at these times to be covered by workers compensation.

This bill is also about enhancing various entitlements available to employees under the principal act. The bill will amend the method for calculating retirees’ incapacity benefits to take account of changes in interest rates. The change in the interest rate provision would result in increased benefits payable to retirees. The bill will also increase the maximum funeral benefits payable under the SRC Act and its counterpart for members of the defence forces, the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 2004, to bring these benefits closer into line with actual funeral costs.

The bill will also provide a further reference scale for adjusting employee entitlements under the scheme. Where an employee’s normal weekly earnings cannot be updated by reference to the rates contained in those instruments currently referred to in the SRC Act, benefits will be updated by reference to the Australian Bureau of Statistics index, which will be prescribed in the regulation.

Finally, the bill includes a number of minor technical amendments to the SRC Act which correct anomalies that adversely affect the efficient operation of the act or are inconsistent with the original policy intent behind particular provisions. I commend the bill to the House.

Alan Griffin (Bruce, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Although the opposition will on this occasion support the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2006, it would be remiss of me not to make a couple of comments, given events that occurred in the other house in respect of these matters. The House may not be aware that, when this issue was considered last Tuesday night, the circumstances were such that the government actually lost the vote 30 to 31—it was negatived. That meant that there had to be a recommittal of the matter in order for the government to use its numbers to ram a result through.

The circumstances are interesting. I am not in any way belittling the seriousness of these issues—compensation and rehabilitation matters are very important for those they affect. However, I could not help but think that, given some of the debates we have in this place, we saw an approach in the Senate that was more akin to what we are attacked for than what the government maintains for themselves. Just a few minutes ago the Assistant Treasurer was talking about the evil links of the Labor Party to the trade union movement. Yet on Tuesday night I am not sure whether two or three senators were working to rule, on strike, otherwise involved with work bans or in some way acting in some form of guerrilla activity. But most certainly the act goes to the question of incapacity by injury or disease and an inability to get to work. In those circumstances, clearly, Senators Macdonald and Santoro—and I think maybe others—were in that situation. I will not dwell on Senator Santoro’s circumstances—we know that, as of today, he is no longer a senator—and I know that Senator Macdonald is retiring at the next election . But maybe they just got a bit ahead of themselves last Tuesday night and decided to see what it was like. It was very embarrassing, I guess. The government worked very hard to deceive the Australian people in order to ensure that they were able to get a whole raft of legislation through this term on the basis of getting a majority in the Senate, but to have that majority and then to forget to turn up in order to exercise it is very unfortunate.

A section of the bill refers to amendments to schedule 1, item 12, page 8, and talks about inserting a clause about an employee travelling between the employee’s place of work and another place for the purpose of obtaining a medical certificate for the purposes of this act, receiving medical treatment for an injury, undergoing a rehabilitation program provided under this act or undergoing a medical examination. We do not know what was happening with those senators just the other night. Was it a situation of rehabilitation? Did they require medical treatment? Certainly in some respects there is an argument in the case of some of those senators that medical treatment would almost always be required. Why they were not able to get there on time, I do not know. I note that another section of the act also talks about unlicensed operation of a major hazard facility. And on the subject of hazards, it could well describe the Prime Minister and this government, because in recent times ‘hazard facility’ has been one way to describe the operation of this government.

When it comes to the question of safety, rehabilitation and compensation, I urge the government, in order to ensure that matters are dealt with expeditiously and effectively in the other place, to do their very best to take their hard-won Senate majority and make sure that everyone tries to get to church on time to do their job and to do so in a situation such that we are not worried about whether their incapacity requires compensation or litigation. In the circumstances, I mention that this is an unusual event. I think it is a sign of the way that this government are operating in a general sense and is certainly a view of things to come.

Martin Ferguson (Batman, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Transport, Roads and Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am forced to join with the member for Bruce in raising the performance of the government not only in the Senate but also in the House of Representatives. I must say that I was a bit surprised on Tuesday night. I was driving home and, having nothing else to listen to on the radio, I tuned in to the Senate. To my surprise I found the Opposition Whip, one Senator George Campbell, on his feet having to respond to a request by the government to enable them to put legislation before the Senate yet again. I listened to this intently and I wondered, ‘What is going on?’

Here is a government that has a majority in the Senate. I know the Australian community now realises it has made a mistake, with Work Choices legislation and a raft of other legislation with which the government has used its majority to have its way with respect to penalising ordinary Australian workers. As the debate went on, we found out that a number of government senators had not met their responsibilities—responsibilities which the Australian community expects them to meet by actually turning up to do their job.

This bill, the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2006, is a very important one because it is about restricting ordinary workers’ compensatable rights. It takes away the capacity to guarantee compensation to ordinary workers going to and from work. The government wants to have its way in respect of penalising ordinary workers yet again, as it has under the Work Choices legislation, yet it could not even get a number of senators—and, I must say, if they have an accident, they have a guarantee that they will receive their salaries on an ongoing basis. There is no question of any loss of pay for these senators. That is the nature of the legislation before the House this morning in respect of the rights of ordinary workers.

We have a number of senators, led by Senator Sandy Macdonald and his partner in crime, Senator Santoro, who are unable to fulfil their responsibilities and obligations to the Australian community and unable to maintain government discipline. I would have thought that it was about time the government realised that it is their responsibility to run the House of Representatives and also to run the Senate. It is not our responsibility. I might also say that, in respect of the performance of the government, it is interesting to have a look from time to time at the list of speakers who are willing to debate legislation before the House.

There is not much legislation at the moment because this government has run out of ideas. All too often, it is the opposition and the Independents who are keeping the House going by being prepared to come here and participate in debates. That is our job: to seriously consider the nature of legislation, to point out faults and to seek to improve it. It is actually a terrific opportunity in life to do that, because you are trying to do what is in the best interests of Australia as a nation.

Yet, unfortunately, on Tuesday evening, the government, with a majority in the Senate, had to get on its hands and knees and plead to the opposition party. Senator George Campbell had to respond, and he did so with goodwill. He said, ‘Yes, we will give you leave,’ because that is about cooperating and making sure that the house operates appropriately. But it reminds us all of the fact that we now have an arrogant government that has run out of ideas and has no business. Not only has it failed in the Senate this week because of its arrogance and contempt for parliamentary processes but also it has failed in the House of Representatives.

Who would have thought that this week—actually, yesterday—the Main Committee, which is about facilitating the operation of the House’s non-controversial legislation, would sit for only 90 minutes? And that was not for the purposes of considering legislation. Those 90 minutes were taken up with members’ three-minute statements. It is worse today. There is no legislation and the Main Committee is not even sitting. What is going on? Where is the government’s program of action?

I consider that the House should acknowledge that we have a government that has run out of ideas. There is no legislative program. The Senate collapsed the other evening because of an inability to have its way in respect of government legislation. The Main Committee of the House has collapsed today, and it sat for only 90 minutes yesterday. To those in the government, I think it is about time that you understood that you have another six to eight months in this parliament and that you are obligated to bring legislation before the House and debate changes that are necessary and affect the Australian community.

You also have an obligation to make sure that the House and the Senate perform and function in a proper way. If you do not then, clearly, the Australian community is right in its current attitude to the government. It is the government that has run out of ideas and run out of steam. The parliamentary processes—the legislative requirements of the nation, both in the Senate and in the House of Representatives—this week proved that beyond any doubt. So the message to the government is this: start doing your business. It is our responsibility—and we will do it—to participate in debates, but it is your responsibility to run both houses. (Time expired)

Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party, Minister for Workforce Participation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I find it quite extraordinary that the member for Bruce, followed by the member for Batman, acknowledged the seriousness of rehabilitation and compensation for workers in Australia who are injured or have disease related to their employment, yet turned the opportunity to talk about the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2006 into a pathetic diatribe—of course, sometimes making an attempt at humour too—about Senate voting procedures. I think that is quite extraordinary—

Alan Griffin (Bruce, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Griffin interjecting

Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party, Minister for Workforce Participation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, I thought it was amusing that the member for Batman talked about hearing of the Senate vote while he drove home in his car. While the rest of us were here in the House working hard, he was in his car driving home, listening to what was happening in parliament on the radio. How extraordinary! I thought to myself, ‘That was a funny admission.’ The rest of us were here, of course.

This is a very serious piece of legislation and it did in fact present an opportunity for the opposition to talk about their own states, where currently a Labor government is in place, which are not necessarily moving in the right direction concerning removing the rights of workers to claim for injuries sustained in travelling from home to work. I have to admit that the member for Bruce did begin by saying this is an important piece of legislation. It is, and we as a government—the most extraordinarily reforming government since the era of Menzies era—are determined that workers in Australia will be the best served in terms of compensation and rehabilitation. These amendments are significant. I commend the amendments and ask for their agreement in this House.

Question agreed to.