Page 3439 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 11 October 1994
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Mr De Domenico's amendment is trying, in essence, to regulate the arrangement between the employer and the employer's insurer. That is not a provision that we see as being appropriate in an amendment to a workers compensation Bill. We say that what we should be regulating is the arrangement and the relationship between the employee and the employer; that, through subrogation, there is an obligation on the employer to make his arrangement with his insurer on a basis that the insurer is comfortable with; but that that should not necessarily be a matter provided for in the legislation, as proposed by the amendment moved by Mr De Domenico. On that basis, we will be opposing this amendment proposed by the Opposition.
MS SZUTY (8.55): I, too, will be opposing this amendment proposed by Mr De Domenico. I can understand where Mr De Domenico is coming from in terms of the insurers possibly having more information at their disposal than the employers under the particular circumstances; but, for me, it is interesting that this provision comes under the heading "Occupational Rehabilitation". I would have thought that it was the employers' primary responsibility in this area of occupational rehabilitation, rather than the insurers'. It is for that reason that I will be opposing Mr De Domenico's amendment in this instance.
Amendment negatived.
MR LAMONT (Minister for Urban Services, Minister for Housing and Community Services, Minister for Industrial Relations and Minister for Sport) (8.56): I ask for leave to move amendments Nos 3 and 4, circulated in my name on the sheet marked "Supplementary A", together.
Leave granted.
MR LAMONT: Madam Speaker, I move:
Page 3, line 2, proposed subsection 15C(1), after "(4)", insert "and any relevant protocol".
Page 4, line 5, after proposed section 15D, insert the following sections:
Approval of protocol
"15E. (1) The Minister may, after consultation with representatives of employers, unions and insurers, by instrument, approve a protocol or an amendment of a protocol relating to occupational rehabilitation.
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