Page 1731 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 17 October 1989
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As I indicated earlier, over the past few years all other States and the Commonwealth have faced similar problems to those facing the ACT. They have substantially revised their schemes, with the aim of introducing the type of injury prevention and management programs to which I referred earlier. The Government believes that the ACT is now in a position to learn from the experiences of those other States and introduce a scheme that contains the best points of those other schemes, while avoiding their mistakes.
As well as being unique in having no formal rehabilitation arrangements, the ACT is unique in regard to the workers compensation scheme which operates here. All other States and the Commonwealth either have schemes totally run by the government or have a government insurance office which competes in the marketplace.
The ACT scheme has neither of these features, instead relying on an outdated Act which provides for workers compensation cover to be provided by a number of private insurers, with, as I mentioned earlier, no provision for formal rehabilitation and no encouragement for employers to introduce adequate prevention measures. Going into the 1990s, this is not good enough, either for workers or for the ACT economy.
It is necessary to consider the type of scheme most appropriate to the needs of all affected parties in the ACT. By that I mean primarily workers and employers. While there are obviously other interested parties - insurance companies, medical practitioners and the legal fraternity - the prime concern of government must be to provide the best possible scheme for workers at the lowest possible cost to industry.
Obviously the costs to industry are important, both to the individual companies and to the ACT economy. Companies which are in effect required to pay the equivalent of one worker's wages for every four workers actually employed, as happens in the building industry, face an unacceptable impost and in many cases must seriously consider the value of proceeding with a project or an investment. Where they must carry on operations in the ACT their options are limited, but it is a more serious problem for the ACT economy where industries can just as easily locate, for example, in Queanbeyan and pay a fraction of the workers compensation costs.
This cost disincentive has obvious ramifications for the ACT economy. I personally and officers of my department have had many representations from employers on this matter, and I am aware of employment that has been lost to the ACT as a direct result of this significant cost disparity. In the interests of the ACT economy it must be resolved.
Equally, though, it cannot be resolved at the expense of the benefits available to workers who are unfortunately injured in their employment. It will therefore be necessary to consider both the types of benefits which need to be delivered under a scheme and the type of scheme that can deliver those benefits at the lowest cost to the
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