Karen McNamara (Dobell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in continuation on my contribution to the debate on the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Legislation Amendment Bill 2014. For example, each bank guarantee requires a separate actuarial report with different requirements set by each jurisdiction, and there are numerous differences between jurisdictions in taking out a reinsurance policy. In their submission to the 2004 Productivity Commission inquiry, Pacific National claimed that national based insurance potentially represented a saving of between 50 per cent and 70 per cent on recurrent financial costs alone. Productivity and savings would also be realised through the capacity for an employer to standardise, centralise and streamline claims management functions.

Each jurisdictional scheme requires self-insurers to demonstrate adequate procedures for managing workers compensation claims. Self-insurers are required to demonstrate that they employ qualified staff and engage certified scheme service providers. This is to ensure that employees of self-insurers have their claims managed in a professional manner in accordance with the different scheme benefit structures. Most jurisdictions require self-insurers to have claims managers located in that jurisdiction.

A number of self-insurers have noted that this prevents them from operating a centralised claims management centre which would reduce claims management costs. For example, CSR in 2004 estimated that it would save $150,000 per annum if it could have a single claims management centre. Operating under one scheme also means having a uniform set of benefits and rules across all employees, which ensures equality amongst workers. Multistate self-insurers are required to have detailed knowledge of up to eight different claims management and benefit structures. IT systems to manage different payment structures are expensive and time consuming, given the complexities involved in the benefit calculation processes and variations between jurisdictions.

WHS regulations apply to all employers, irrespective of whether or not they self-insure; however added requirements are placed upon self-insurers to demonstrate through audit that they have appropriate WHS management systems. These systems and audit processes differ between the schemes, adding additional costs for multistate employers. Costs associated with complying with various WHS requirements exacerbated with the additional expense of multiple audits and differences between audit requirements. This makes it difficult and costly for multistate employers to develop uniform WHS management systems. For example, Woolworths has different WHS management systems in each jurisdiction due to the difficulty in developing a single WHS management process that meets different jurisdictional requirements. Woolworths estimate a saving of approximately $400,000 per annum if they had a single national WHS management system.

Self-insurers are required to pay an application fee and ongoing levies for each licence These fees and charges include the recovery of self-insurance application administration costs and contributions to WHS functions. For corporations who operate in multiple jurisdictions, there may be unnecessary replication in the payment of some component of these fees and concern with regard to the variance in these fees despite a similar number of employees covered by each licence. Self-Insurers are required to supply data to the regulator. The collection of data imposes costs on multistate self-insurers, because each scheme requires a different data set and software to supply the data; thus preventing self-insurers from operating an integrated computer system to satisfy multistate scheme requirements.

Another significant amendment presented in this bill is the enabling of the SRCC to grant a single licence for self-insurance through the Comcare scheme for a related group of companies. Under current arrangements a corporation cannot apply for a group self-insurance licence under Comcare, so each entity in the group must apply separately for a licence. The introduction of group licences will reduce red tape and cost for employers, as it recognises that groups of interrelated corporations often share return-to-work and work health and safety systems within the group.

A significant barrier preventing harmonisation of workers compensation scheme has been the lack of an integrated national work health and safety framework. In March 2007 occupational health and safety coverage was provided for all Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act licensees. However, with the enactment of the Commonwealth WHS Act 2011 new entrants to the Comcare scheme from 1 January 2012 did not have coverage for WHS purposes. This meant that Comcare self-insurers lost the advantage of truly uniform WHS laws and the reduced compliance costs and administrative efficiency that this brings. This change was introduced in anticipation of national harmonisation of work health and safety laws, which has not occurred in Victoria and Western Australia, resulting in multistate employers continuing to operate under varying schemes.

This bill also seeks to excludes workers compensation claims for injuries that occur during recess breaks away from an employer's premises. Under current arrangements, compensation is payable for injuries occurring during recess breaks even if the employee is not at the place of work when the injury occurs. Under the proposed amendments, injuries occurring when a worker is away from the workplace and is not undertaking work related activities will not be compensated. If workers are undertaking activities associated with their employment, or at the request or direction of the employer during a recess, they will still be covered. Workers who are injured at work even while having a recess or lunch break will remain fully covered.

The bill will also exclude access to workers compensation when a worker engages in a serious and wilful misconduct even if the injury results in death or serious and permanent impairment. As the minister outlined in his second reading speech:

While claims in this category are rare, the Australian public rightly expects that employees should take personal responsibility for their actions.

It is crucial that any workers compensation scheme is geared towards people acting in a proper and safe manner and does not include a safety net for people who break the rules and put themselves and other employees at risk.

This government will ensure that employers under Comcare will operate under a single workers compensation and WHS scheme. Eligible corporations will have access to Comcare's workers compensation and WHS regime. This will reduce red tape, jurisdictional inconsistency and maximise equity for employees in terms of injury management, compensation and return to work. This will also enable these corporations to achieve an integrated approach to prevention, rehabilitation and return to work. The proposed reforms under this bill will be better for businesses, better for workers and better for the economy.

Eligible multijurisdictional corporations will have the opportunity to realise efficiencies and savings from becoming a self-insurer under a single jurisdiction—hence, capitalising on the ability to invest and expand nationally as a result of coverage under a single regime. The Taylor Fry report in examining the financial arrangements for self-insurers under the Comcare scheme stated there would be:

Minimal impacts on the state and territory workers' compensation schemes if private corporations were to join the Comcare scheme as self-insurers. This was consistent with the 2004 Productivity Commission report. I commend this bill to the House. (Time expired)

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I find it very interesting to follow the member for Dobell in this debate on the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Legislation Amendment Bill 2014. I note that she worked for WorkCover prior to becoming elected to parliament. The context of her speech and the direction of her speech was all about reducing costs, about efficiency, about the cost of compliance, about the cutting of red tape, about the cost to employers and the cost to insurers, and there was really no mention about providing support for injured workers. Occupational health and safety and workers compensation was introduced into this country, into the various states in our Commonwealth, to provide cover for workers who are injured at work. While she talked about employees or workers taking personal responsibility for their action, there was no talk about employers taking responsibility for the action that they take.

I think the member for Dobell's contribution really puts this debate in context. We have one side of the House, the side that I sit on, that is really concerned about ensuring that workers are properly protected if they are injured at work, and you have the other side of this parliament that is all about reducing cost to employers and reducing cost to insurers to enable them to make a greater profit at the expense of injured workers. That really puts it in context and it probably goes across the divide when you look at a number of issues. We are about people, we are about workers and we are about seeing that people have proper coverage, whilst the other side of this House is about ensuring that those that employ, or those that are in big business, can actually make a substantial profit.

I see this legislation as another attack on workers by a government that very much has a hidden agenda to undermine workers' rights, to undermine workers' conditions and to undermine workers' protection in the workplace. The government has history in relation to this. Under the Howard government, I was a member of the House committee that did a review into workers compensation laws, and the agenda that the then government had in relation to workers compensation was very obvious.

There has been a gradual whittling away of protection if you look at other jurisdictions. I cannot help but look to New South Wales, which is my home state, where the O'Farrell government introduced the most draconian changes to workers compensation legislation that I have ever seen. I have had worker after worker coming into my office telling me how they have got no coverage now and how they are unable to have that operation that they were scheduled to have because of the timing, as the changes have been put in place retrospectively. Most changes to workers' compensation, in both New South Wales and this jurisdiction, have not been retrospective—the changes take place from the date they are introduced. In New South Wales, they cover everybody that is on workers' compensation. It really shows the agenda of the Liberal and National parties on workers' compensation.

I used to be a rehabilitation counsellor before I came to this parliament, and in that job I worked with injured workers, with insurance companies and with employers. The aim of my job was to get people back into the workforce, preferably with their previous employer, and to have the workplace modified so they could return to their job and, maybe after rehabilitation, go back to full duties. During that time a number of obstacles were put in the path of those workers. Employers were reluctant to take them back into their workplace and insurance companies did not provide the support that they needed. If you provide the maximum of support you have the best opportunity for a good outcome, but walking away from workers leaves them in a situation where they cannot have the optimal outcome.

This government's agenda is very questionable when it comes to anything relating to workers' compensation, wages, workers' rights, workers' pay or workers' conditions. I believe this legislation before the parliament is just another step down the track of this government's antiworker agenda. The bill amends the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act and the Work Health and Safety Act to expand the eligibility of corporations to self-insure through the Commonwealth's Comcare scheme, which will allow companies operating across state borders to self-insure under the scheme. It also removes the need for the minister to declare eligibility to apply for a self-insure licence while maintaining the ability of the minister to issue directions to the Safety and Rehabilitation Commissioner, and it enables corporations currently required to meet workers' compensation obligations under two or more workers' compensation laws of a state to apply to the commission to join the Comcare scheme. It also allows a Commonwealth authority that ceases to be a Commonwealth authority to apply directly to the commission for approval to be a self-insurer. This, along with other changes, enables the commissioner to grant group licences to related corporations. I feel these changes have not been properly thought through and I do not think there will be proper oversight of the changes that will take place.

The government has refused to guarantee that no worker will be worse off. I have shared with the House the New South Wales experience where practically every worker is worse off, and now we have another Liberal-National Party government set to deliver a blow to workers, refusing to say that workers will not be worse off. For those on the other side of this parliament, it is not all about the worker that will be injured in the workplace, it is not all about ensuring that they can get the best possible outcome—rather it is about, as the member for Dobell mentioned, cost-cutting, efficiency, compliance, cutting red tape and reducing costs for employers. A person seriously injured at work will never be able to undertake life as it was—their life is changed forever. One of the most common complaints from those on the other side of the House relates to people who have a back injury. If you are a manual worker who has very limited literacy skills and you injure your back, then not only has your work been taken away from you but you probably have very limited opportunity to find another job and then every other aspect of your life is changed. That is what those on the other side of this House do not get. I do not see anything in this legislation that will assure Australians that workplaces will be as safe as they are now. Nothing that speakers on the other side of this House have said convinces me of that. Rather, I hear about things such as reducing costs, efficiency, compliance and reducing red tape—nothing about ensuring that workplaces throughout Australia are safe, about ensuring that workers are not seriously injured, about ensuring that workers do not lose their lives when they are working on a building site or in a mine. In the electorate that I represent workers in both those sorts of workplaces have lost their lives.

I see this government as bowing to the interests of big business. The government just not does not consider the impact of injury, disability and death. When it does open up the scheme, it will reduce the financial impact in the state systems and it will increase premiums for the remaining businesses in those schemes, adding pressure on workers' entitlements. It will leave sick workers worse off. If we go back to look at what workers compensation is about, it is compensating workers for injury at work. It is doing something to help them adjust to the fact that they went to work, they were seriously injured and they cannot go back to the work they did. They are worse off physically and now this scheme, I believe, will leave sick workers worse off in every aspect of their lives.

This is a really important point: the compliance obligations under Comcare are weaker than in the state systems. Comcare offers lower payments to injured workers, and Comcare's capacity to inspect workplaces and enforce laws will be reduced further as more businesses gain coverage. Comcare has only 44 inspectors nationwide—44 inspectors nationwide that are supposed to ensure that workplaces are safe—whilst each state based scheme has hundreds of inspectors working to ensure that workplaces meet their safety requirements. I find it extremely concerning that there is nothing in this legislation that places any obligation on employers and insurers to ensure that workplaces are made safe. There is no hint that the number of inspectors will be expanded and no hint that this government has any concern for injured workers.

I know the shadow minister has moved an amendment, and I know that the shadow minister is very, very concerned about the issues that I have raised. I note that workers will not be covered during breaks, and I also note that examples have been given of workers that take a break whilst working at a job that takes them outside their workplace, and I do not think that question has been answered. I believe there are a number of questions that this government has not answered. Rather, it is legislating to ensure that its ideological, philosophical hatred of workers and its enslavement to big business are enshrined in legislation rather than trying to put on the table fair legislation that will benefit both workers and employers—and, then, insurers as well. I find I cannot support this legislation. It is bad legislation, and it is typical of this Abbott government. (Time expired)

Louise Markus (Macquarie, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Legislation Amendment Bill, which seeks to address aspects of the existing legislation which cause multistate corporations undue compliance costs. This government accepted a mandate from the Australian people to build a strong and prosperous economy. The coalition has committed itself to stewarding the wealth of this nation responsibly, wisely and in such a way as to create increased employment, greater benefit and greater security for everyday Australians. In short, the coalition is committed to cleaning up Labor's budget mess—a mess of inefficiencies.

When we are dealing with taxpayers' money it is simply unacceptable to see funds wasted on the impediment of unnecessary regulation and poor management. This amendment bill is not about making life more difficult for employees working for multistate corporations or about complicating workers' guarantee of adequate and fair protection in the case of compensation for injuries sustained. It seeks more responsible management and a simplification of a potentially complicated system of workers compensation. This bill seeks to amend the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988 and the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 to expand the eligibility of corporations to self-insure through the Commonwealth's Comcare scheme.

To really grasp what this bill intends, we need to look back at the recent history with regard to this legislation. Employers operating in multiple states have been required to operate according to different workers compensation schemes and work health and safety regulations in each jurisdiction around Australia. This means red tape for employers and confusion, often, for workers subject to different regulations and benefits from their colleagues, depending on which state or territory they are employed in. This House is aware that certain private sector corporations have in the past been able to self-insure for workers compensation coverage through the Commonwealth Comcare scheme. There has been much to-ing and fro-ing over this particular aspect of the bill, when Productivity Commission inquiries and consultation with local state governments have indicated it could be streamlined to the benefit of businesses and employees alike.

The coalition Howard government responded to Productivity Commission inquiry recommendations by allowing eligible private corporations that operated in multiple states to apply for a self-insurance licence with the Comcare scheme. The intention of this action was that costs might be used more effectively to create new jobs, while simultaneously upholding improved safety standards within the enterprise. A moratorium on new corporations entering the Comcare scheme was imposed in 2007 by Labor, despite evidence from the 2004 Productivity Commission inquiry into National workers compensation and occupational health and safety frameworks, which found the compliance costs for multistate employers concerning multiple state workers compensation arrangements were significant. Currently 30 licensed corporations benefit from the reduced costs of having one set of workers compensation arrangements for the national workforce. Among these are former Commonwealth authorities such as Australia Post and Telstra, and private corporations such as Optus, TNT, the National Australia Bank and the John Holland Group. The results speak for themselves. Since joining the Comcare scheme, the work health and safety performance of these companies has almost universal improved in significant proportions. Under the Comcare scheme, companies with reduced bureaucracies are enabled to operate more effectively with their employees in improving work health and safety in their organisations.

Despite the success of Comcare, the previous, Labor government acted to ban multistate companies from joining the scheme. Labor commissioned a review, led by its own Dr Allan Hawke AC, which gave the recommendation to lift this moratorium, given the huge expense and inefficiency of insuring in multiple states and territories. Labor failed to follow its own advice, an oversight largely influenced by pressure from the union bosses. Apparently, neither the employment minister nor the workplace relations minister of the previous government had the wherewithal to fully address the needs of the workforce in this area and ensure the right decisions were made.

It makes sense to place these corporations and employees under one scheme across multiple states so that regulatory costs are kept to a minimum. What might be done with the funds that are spared the black hole of our red-tape-hugging former Labor government? New jobs, improved standards of safety, further economic growth. Accordingly, the coalition government lifted the moratorium in December 2013 in order that multistate employers performing to meet rigorous financial and governance criteria and demonstrating suitable work health and safety performance may apply for a licence to self-insure in the Comcare scheme, as opposed to dealing with multiple schemes. It is good to mention here that this government also intends to allow multistate employers to choose to apply to self-insure for workers compensation arrangement with Comcare to also have one set of work health and safety regulations. Thus the objective of this amendment bill before us today is to assist Australian multistate corporations to operate smarter by expanding their ability to self-insure in a standardised federal scheme, Comcare.

The amendments in the bill before this House are specifically the following: firstly, to remove the requirement that the minister declare eligibility to apply for a self-insurance licence, while maintaining the minister's ability to issue directions to the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Commission—this will streamline the current two-stage approval process by removing the requirement that a corporation must be in competition with a Commonwealth authority or former Commonwealth authority to enter the Comcare scheme—and, secondly, to broaden the range of corporations that are eligible for a licence to self-insure under the scheme.

The first of these amendments, to remove the requirement for the minister to declare eligibility for a corporation to apply for a self-insurance licence, addresses the current, ponderously slow two-stage process. It requires a declaration of eligibility to be granted by the minister before any assessment can be made by the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Commission according to their criteria. Furthermore, it is expensive. Time is always at a premium when it comes to an effective economy; and, since Labor's previous tenure, money is at a higher premium than ever before. Labor's legacy of national debt is costing us $1 billion in interest per month, a burden taxpayers continue to carry, a burden this government is seeking to remove. This amendment will allow the commission to assess applicants' eligibility for a self-insurance licence in one step, while corporations are still exposed to the same stringent financial and governance requirements currently imposed by the commission.

This directly enables the two major amendments I have listed, aimed at ensuring a robust approval process unimpeded by red tape. The withdrawal of the requirement that corporations be in competition with a Commonwealth authority to enter the Comcare scheme and the determination to include national employers—that is, those corporations meeting workers compensation obligations under two or more states—among the cohorts of corporations deemed eligible to self-insure under the scheme carry considerable anticipated savings and increased efficiencies. The recommendations enacted in this bill are expected to result in a total reduction in the regulatory burden, for those Australian businesses that transfer to the Comcare scheme, of $33 million per year over the next 10 years.

I should clarify that these amendments maintain the freedom of eligible employers to continue under multilayered workers compensation and work health and safety regimes or to apply for one set of national arrangements as they choose.

This amendment bill is about refining an essential existing piece of legislation for Australian businesses and employees so that it assists rather than impedes economic growth while maintaining high safety standards. In addition to these amendments, measures towards the better management of corporate groups are being addressed in this bill. Currently, corporations applying to be covered under the Comcare scheme must be assessed individually for eligibility. Business has for some time been seeking the introduction of group licences to the SRC Act.

The amendment bill provides for the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Commission to grant a licence to an eligible group of corporations owned by the same holding company, in line with the state schemes and the commercial reality of modern multicompany corporate structures. This bill recognises that groups of interrelated corporations often share return-to-work and work health and safety systems, and that each entity forming part of a group does not individually need to meet the definition of a 'national employer'. It is better for business, better for workers and, indeed, better for the economy.

Ongoing standards for the protection of workers remain a key concern of this government. As with current licences, it is a condition upon the issuing of a licence that the SRC Commission's standards are met with regard to work health and safety. The commission has the ability to vary or revoke a licence if it is not satisfied that this licence condition is being met.

This government is doing all it can to ensure that Comcare has the capacity to manage the increased responsibility in relation to workers compensation and work health and safety, and that it is financially viable. With Comcare being the single work health and safety regulator in the federal jurisdiction under the Work Health and Safety Act 2011, Comcare inspectors and case managers have the authority necessary to represent the government in their actions, and greater flexibility in regulatory approaches. The costs of meeting regulatory responsibilities are resourced within the scheme. Regulatory contributions by licences, reflecting the cost incurred by the performance of the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Commission and Comcare, effectively fund self-insurance under the scheme.

The Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Legislation Amendment Bill will save on red tape and streamline multistate corporations' compliance with workers compensation schemes by managing one standardised scheme. The bill is about streamlining and refining a national scheme that will work more effectively for multistate corporation employees. Workers moving onto Comcare will benefit from a nationwide workers compensation scheme that delivers the same coverage and benefits for all employees. This means real savings to business that will be more wisely invested in the larger economy and less confusion for multistate corporation employees. The bill is about building a strong and prosperous economy for a safe and secure Australia. I commend the bill to the House.

Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Macquarie. The question is that this bill be read a second time. I call the member for Corio.

Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Acting Deputy Speaker.

Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Just Deputy Speaker.

Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm sorry. Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker; I apologise. I am speaking in opposition to the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Legislation Amendment Bill 2014. Under the Howard government, reforms were introduced which allowed private national employers to opt into the Comcare scheme, a scheme which has its origins in providing workers compensation to employees of federal government agencies and bodies that have been privatised from the federal government. This was a reform which would allow national employers which had no history with the federal government to become a part of the Comcare scheme by virtue of self-insurance, by doing which they took themselves out of the various states schemes that those companies were a part of. It was a controversial step at the time and there were many concerns with it. As a result, when Labor was elected in 2007 a moratorium was put almost immediately on the practice of issuing licences to national employers seeking to self-insure under the Comcare scheme.

This bill seeks in effect to lift that moratorium so that national employers will be able to self-insure in the Comcare scheme. There is a superficial attraction in such a measure, in the idea of a company being able to be part of one workers compensation scheme rather than many, but there are many aspects of this which, beyond that superficial observation, make it clear that this is a deeply retrograde step.

The first point to make is that there is in place a national employer test for companies to pass which would enable them to become a self-insurer under the Comcare scheme. It is at best a minimal test. All you need to do to satisfy the test is operate in more than one state. There is no requirement about a minimum number of employees but there is a requirement that you self-insure. What you see with self-insurance in any of the state schemes is that it is, by and large, confined to those very large companies which have the capacity to engage in self-insurance, but this on the face of it will be open to any company which simply operate in more than one state. That is a minimal test and it is a real deficiency within this bill.

The second point to make is that there are a number of deficiencies within the Comcare scheme itself. To be fair, the workers compensation schemes that you see around Australia vary and are a reflection, I suppose, of the injury profile of those economies as they have developed over decades. The injury profile of the Comcare scheme has largely been about white-collar work—not entirely but largely—so the scheme is around that kind of work. It is good in that context. But Comcare just was not designed for large national employers which have significant amounts of blue-collar work, which may have entirely different kinds of injuries. As a result, there are significant deficiencies within the Comcare scheme which might apply to those people—for example, access to common law and the provisions within the Comcare scheme which provide for the facilitation of people returning to work. Comcare was designed principally as a scheme for the Australian Public Service. What we are now talking about, if this bill is allowed to pass, is this scheme becoming one which would apply potentially across the board with all the diversity that you see within our economy and all the diversity of injury profiles. That has not been thought about. It was not thought about by Howard's government. It is not being thought about by Tony Abbott. The next point—

Natasha Griggs (Solomon, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Refer to people by their correct title, please.

Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Howard government?

Natasha Griggs (Solomon, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He is the Prime Minister; he is not Tony Abbott.

Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

By the Abbott government. I apologise, Madam Acting Deputy Speaker. I thank you for picking me up on that. I look forward to that level of detail being applied to everyone who speaks in this debate.

Natasha Griggs (Solomon, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And it certainly will, Member for Corio!

Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Good. I appreciate that. The next point that needs to be made is: what will this do in relation to the state schemes? Workers compensation schemes are a form of insurance. They have a whole lot of actuarial research and assumptions underpinning them. They are based on the full spectrum of companies within a particular state or territory participating within those schemes. If we are now giving larger employers which have the capacity to self-insure the option of leaving state schemes and going into Comcare, this has the potential to have a devastating effect on the financial viability of the schemes within each of the states and territories. The only way in which those schemes will be able to deal with the challenge to their financial viability is to increase premiums. That is the only way they can do it. That is going to hit small and medium business. Small and medium enterprises will pay for the decision to allow large national employers to exit the state schemes and to enter the Comcare scheme on a self-insured basis. That is inevitable consequence of what will happen here. None of that has been thought through by this government, which is why so many of the state and territory jurisdictions oppose this measure. It is because they know what this is going to do to their schemes. Small and medium enterprises, I assure you, will also be very clear in the position they take in respect of this, because this means added cost for them.

The final point—and it seems to me that this is the most significant issue about taking this step—is that with state workers compensation schemes we have inspectorates which have hundreds of people in them. There are hundreds of people going out there and looking at whether or not companies are behaving in a safe way. There are strong police on the beat, if I can put it that way, to make sure that our companies and workplaces are operating in a safe manner.

Comcare have 44 inspectors nationally. If we are going to see these national companies go into this scheme, we are essentially going to see companies go into a scheme where there is no cop on the beat. There will effectively be no cop on the beat. The idea that 44 inspectors are going to be responsible for overseeing significant national companies in the Comcare scheme as envisaged by this amendment is politically ridiculous. This is absolutely retrograde in the steps that it is taking. This will mean that we have people entering a scheme which is essentially not policed or, at the very least, it is not set up to police the kind of national companies with the thousands of employers that they will bring coming into this scheme. None of that has been thought about it either. This is simply picking a policy out of the Work Choices Howard era and putting it into the here and now without thinking about any of the repercussions or consequences associated with it.

What concerns me about this in a bigger sense is that it shows such scant regard, in my view, for the critical issue of safety at work. That is ultimately what we are talking about here. Last year, 187 Australians went to work in the morning and did not return home. They lost their lives in a traumatic accident at work. That is 187 too many. That is in itself a human tragedy. But if you look at the other forms of the way in which work impacts upon people's lives and the other ways in which people can contract injury and disease from work, such as muscular skeletal disorders, mental disorders, infectious diseases, respiratory diseases—and I am going to come back to that in a moment—and cardiovascular diseases, when you look at all of that and the way in which work interacts with our lives, the number of people who are injured and lose their lives as a result of work actually measures in the thousands of people each year. They are the statistics that are not recorded. They are the people who are not seen in this debate.

Perhaps the most vivid example of that is those people who have contracted mesothelioma as a result of their work. It is estimated, when it is all said and done, that 60,000 Australians will lose their lives as a result of work related exposure to asbestos. It is the same number of Australians who lost their lives in the First World War. This is tragedy on a gargantuan stale. It is something that we need to be vigilant about and to address each and every day. There is nothing more unfair than a person being harmed at work.

All of us expect that, when we and our loved ones—children, brothers and sisters—go to work each day, we and they will return at the end of that day. That is a fundamental expectation of our working lives. My concern with this piece of legislation is that this will not assist that. In fact, it will take a massive step backwards in seeing that expectation met.

Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This morning was an opportunity to hear Labor's point of view on this bill which significantly reduces economic burden in the area safety, rehabilitation and compensation. We listened to someone who is arguably the nicest guy in the union movement still give a fairly opaque elaboration of exactly what his opposition is to this bill. We cannot make it any simpler: we are making it easier for corporations around the country that currently have to deal with up to eight different workplace health and safety arrangements such that they will now only have to deal with one. That is such an improvement in the system. It really is incumbent on the other side of this chamber to clearly articulate their concern with that change.

Many of us suspect it is just about how many more union free rides they can get in the state based schemes. That is the suspicion. We are really asking those on the other side of the chamber to crawl out from under the union log and tell us exactly what their concern is with what is an incredibly streamlined and common-sense approach. Within days of the Labor Party being elected to government in 2007, they instantly froze any possibility that a corporation that currently straddles multiple states and territories could apply for a streamlined federal system. The minute we came back into power, we unlocked that because we know it is complete common sense. We owe it to those in the gallery who have travelled from all around the country and are listening to this debate and those listening to the broadcast to tell them exactly why this is not a great idea.

The previous speaker spent half of his contribution to this debate on asbestos and mesothelioma. Of course everyone on both sides of the chamber would hate to see any system where an individual is placed at risk of such a horrible disease. Every injury and death in the workplace is one too many. But, with respect, that is not what this is all about. There may well be 44 people working in Comcare who are responsible for making sure corporations and current members of the system are compliant. But, by definition, the more that join Comcare the more offices they will have. There will be an appropriate number of officers to do the job. By definition, those payers—those people who purchase a licence and self-insure under the Comcare scheme—become part of a larger pool, and therefore you have more people enforcing it. That really is a straw man argument.

But the bigger one really is—and it was just alluded to by the previous speaker—the desire of the union movement to be picking and crawling all over corporations in the guise of being cops on the beat. Now hang on a moment. We have law enforcement agencies all around the country. Last time I checked, it was not the union movement that we have commissioned with the role of crawling all over corporations and calling themselves cops on the beat. No, that is not what they are there for; they are there to look after the interests of a worker. When it comes to corporations who are licence holders under an act like this, there are federal entities responsible for that job. With the greatest respect, it is not up to the union movement to be coming into workplaces without an invitation, kicking tyres and making a nuisance of themselves. I know they got used to it over the last six years, but they are not cops on the beat; they are unions, and that is a very, very different entity. They need to be reminded of that after six years of pretty much doing their own thing without any control at all from a federal government.

We are trying to reduce this regulatory burden. It is absolutely common sense that relatively small corporations that currently have to compete with Comcare in many cases should not face that competitive issue; there should be competitive neutrality. If an entity is currently competing with that Commonwealth provider then under this act they should have the right to be able to apply for a licence.

So, currently, under the SRC Act you can either be a premium payer, which is all of your Commonwealth and ACT entities, or a small number of ADF personnel who are injured in nonoperational service prior to 2004. But, for those that are corporations, we have crawled over this issue a number of times, and even while we had Labor in government we had inquiries recommending that it be open to corporations. So hang on, these are not paid up members of the Liberal Party; these are the highest level thinkers in this space, and I am not just talking about 2011 or 2012. This is going back to 1994, 1995. In the absolute ascendancy of the then Hawke-Keating Labor government was a finding we needed more harmonisation between state arrangements. With credit due to the previous Labor government, there were workplace health and safety model laws that were enacted in 2011, and that was absolutely fine. Unfortunately Victoria, Western Australia and now Queensland are touching on possibly changing these laws, which will mean that entrance to the scheme under licence will have to still retain some form of compliance in their own states.

But this ultimately, for the 43 per cent of entities that are licence holders, needs to be made easier for them to be part of this scheme. Labor's argument that they cannot possibly all be enforced is a spurious one because, as any arrangement builds, so too will the number of enforcement agencies. What we are talking about on labour site access to common law is really just an excuse for the trojan horse of being able to have unions still be able to pick over these corporations and their great fear that once they come out of state based schemes they cannot agitate and they cannot be a constant annoyance to corporations who are fundamentally doing the right thing. If unions have a concern that they are not, there are entities to which these corporations should be reported. That is how it works; that is how the real world works. It does not work with union people trying to find their way into lunch break tearooms, sort of hanging around the coffee table and trying and drum up membership. Financial issues aside, that is not making the workplace a safer place whatsoever.

As early as the mid 1990s, this sort of legislation should have been in evolution and was recommended. We had a 2004 inquiry by the Productivity Commission; we had a Comcare review performed in 2008, including the Taylor-Fry actuarial report; and very briefly and most recently, as I said, there was a review of the SRC Act, performed in 2012-13 and undertaken by Peter Hanks and Allan Hawke, reviewing both the compensation benefit structures and the scheme's performance and in particular governance and financial frameworks. They have consulted those two individuals extensively. You do not have to take one side of parliament's word on this; they have worked with the participants of Comcare scheme and developed these recommendations which clearly say to both sides of this chamber that what we need is a system that allows these new entrants who are choosing to self insure, who are carrying both the risks and benefits and are saying, 'We want to work to reduce within our workplaces the call on workers compensation by having world standards and, in turn, we want our premium to reflect that.'

The great challenge of staying in some of the state based schemes unable to have this say is you are, effectively, paying premiums that cover the transgressions of other corporations and entities. A self-insurer simply says: 'I may be big, I may be small, but I am going to take that risk. I am going to take the actuarial risk, cover my workers and have world-class safety arrangements in place, and we will reap the benefits ultimately by being self-insured and paying lower premiums.' But it is not about lower premiums; it is about lower calls on the SRC system. It is about fewer people requiring workers compensation, because we have world-class safety in our workplaces.

This is a common-sense piece of legislation. It is extraordinary that the other side not only opposes it but really cannot tell you any good reason why they oppose it except, as we suggest, they all just want a few more free lunches for union members. I know that drives them and it drives their preselection, but ultimately this is about corporations and entities that cross state borders being able to pick up the risks and the costs of self-insurance to do that, to remove the need for a minister to be able to determine if you are eligible, to simply be able to apply to the SRCC. This is common-sense, red tape removing legislation and something that not just this side but both sides of the chamber should be supporting.

Ordered that the resumption of the debate be made an order of the day for a later hour.