Page 3449 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 11 October 1994
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Until now, I think everybody was with me. I then said to the trade unions, "What happens when a person is in receipt of compensation for 12 months, and the insurance company and the employer have done nothing, they have done sweet bugger-all, in assessing whether or not there is a continuing liability?". I use that term because that was precisely the term that was used by one of the trade unions in trying to reinforce to me the position about the 12-month requirement and why an employee in receipt of workers compensation, with an expectation of that continuing, after a year, should be the subject of a notice. After a year, when the insurance company and the employer have done nothing to really assess the appropriateness of the continuing arrangements, why should the employer then decide, "Oh, it is starting to cost me a bit much. I will have a look at it now."? Who wears the cost of that arrangement? Mr De Domenico, every employer in Canberra wears that cost where an insurance company is not prepared to review its case arrangements and case load in a timely and appropriate fashion.
What happens when, as we all know, insurance premiums go up? That cost across the industry is borne by, and there are some lateral consequences upon, employers who say, "We have this great cost impost upon us". The insurance companies themselves say, "Look, we are not going to work like that. What we want to do is get in, assess individual claims, and deal with them in a timely and professional manner". That is fine. They should do so in the year that is provided for in this legislation. If you cannot do that within a year, "Look to thyself, physician" is the answer that I would give to those insurance companies.
But I have also suggested that a year is an appropriate compromise, to convince the unions to accept the termination provision. The underlying position of most of the unions was, "Why should we change and give up, on behalf of workers in the ACT, an existing provision which says that on all occasions you should proceed to court; and there is no termination?". That was the position. It was a good old-fashioned horse-trade on my part, which attempted to break the deadlock that existed between members of the Workers Compensation Monitoring Committee. On the one hand, there was the attitude that I cited and the words that I uttered before, which was the perception of the unions. On the other hand, there was a perception by the employers and their insurers that the unions were not prepared to reasonably compromise. In putting these amendments to the Act, I have had to try to steer the middle course; to bring them both to a position which allows us in a year's time to review the way in which the new provisions operate.
Mr De Domenico, the new provisions will apply to claims that are accepted on day one of the operation of the new Act. They will not apply to admissions of workers compensation liability that applied under the old Act. Do you understand that difference? What we are saying here is, "Firstly, we are going to review the operation of the termination provisions at the expiration of 12 months; secondly, if somebody is in receipt of workers compensation for in excess of 12 months, you cannot terminate their payments without going to court". The reality is that, notwithstanding the trade-off that I have outlined, it will be at the review process that we assess what has happened with terminations before an insurer is prevented from terminating the payments to an employee. I would have thought that that would have provided a measure of comfort. It provides a measure of comfort for the unions, which says, "If it is 14 or 15 months before the actual review is conducted, anybody over 12 months is still covered". It says to the insurers that at the end of 12 months this will be reviewed.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .