Page 5928 - Week 18 - Wednesday, 11 December 1991
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During the work on the big hill over here and on the Jolimont Centre, many solicitors had damaged workers streaming through their offices. They were workers who had not had a day off in some cases, and the bunnies were the insurers, who had to bear the get-rich-quick contractors' activity. The ultimate victims were the workers who could not get their joints going again properly.
You also have workers who, once they have been off for a while and become a home parent, frankly are not motivated to get back into the work force. We have all seen those cases too. There is a saying around the legal trade that, if your client has been off for more than about two years, you are going to have a dickens of a time getting the client to do anything but settle for a lump sum because he has got used to a different lifestyle. Even though that lifestyle may involve chronic pain, he is not inclined to go out in the winter in this Territory, if he is an open-air worker, and so on.
You are dealing with very complex issues of human motivation. You have the insurers in the distance all the time, healthily sceptical, and you have the unions on the other perimeter wanting to protect their workers, and often blaming the insurers for the unsafe work practices of contractors. There is one thing about the construction industry that must get better. When we have construction upsurges we do not want firms flying into this town with out-of-State practices that indicate lack of safety. In my opinion, there have been some unhealthy failures by safety conscious union stewards to bring to the attention of the relevant authorities unsafe practices that have ultimately resulted in claims upon the insurers.
Coming back to the period of three months proposed by Mr Stefaniak, your client is presenting in this position. Often if your client is a go-getter he will want to settle early. He is talking settlement when he is supposed to be in pain and more interested in his level of health care. You can pick them. Three months is nowhere near enough time to decide whether injuries are stabilised, and anyone who has had a bone injury will know about what I am saying. You have to go through a winter season, depending on your age and the prospects of premature osteoarthritis, which is common with ankle and other injuries.
You have to realise that many workers have financial commitments, particularly when the building industry is booming and there is a bullish wage incentive and award situation. They have committed themselves and they cannot easily get out of those commitments in the space of three months.
I am advised that in New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and the Northern Territory, and with Comcare here, the replacement payments stay at pre-injury levels, in effect, for six to 12 months. In Western Australia and Tasmania, benefits continue until a monetary limit is
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