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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 10 Hansard (28 August) . . Page.. 3421 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

This rule is about preventing the tendency for employers to not provide adequately for workers compensation for their employees. It is also about preventing, hopefully, the push for individual contract arrangements for people who are nominally employees.

Let me give you an example of a young person who spoke to me who applied for a job with a fencing contractor. I think this person was an employee and would have been covered as an employee by other provisions of the act, but the 80:20 rule would have assisted both of them in understanding their obligations. This young person applied for a job and was told by the person who was employing him, "Look, I would love to give you a job, but I can't afford to put you on as a wage earner. I can put you on for 20 bucks an hour. You will have to insure yourself. If you turn up I'll supply the tools and the palings. You just turn up for work and you look after your own insurance."

I think that was probably unlawful. I think they were probably covered by the legislation. Nevertheless, this goes on, and those who are ignorant of the rules cop it because they need a job.

In this case the young person said, "Stick it, I'll go and get a real job." In the event that such a young person is injured, in many cases they would say, "Well, I knew the rules when I started up. They are decent people. I didn't insure myself. I'll just have to cop it and Medicare will have to look after me. I'll go onto benefits if I can't go to work." In other cases they are a bit wiser than that and they go after their workers compensation entitlements. The matter ends up before the courts and people go bankrupt. Then the nominal insurer ends up with the bill and those sorts of things.

This presents a clear picture to everybody, the 80:20 rule. If you get 80 per cent of your income from the one employer then you are obliged to be covered.

Mr Speaker, I want to go to the government's response to this because I think there are some important issues which need to be addressed. This is a response that I think has been circulated to most people. They try to draw the comparison that this is something the same as the tax system. It has its origins in the Ralph reports on business taxation as a means of classifying people for taxation. It was put to my then committee that this would be a good way of dealing with workers compensation, and it was found to be so. But what the government tries to create is the impression that this is something the same as taxation and that it might apply in the same way as, say, the people who were recently demonstrating from among couriers around the country. This is about couriers' incomes being affected by having to pay too much tax.

I will bet you that if those couriers were covered for workers compensation by someone who was nominally their employer they would be very happy because they would not have to pay it themselves. That is where the difference is. They would get proper coverage for workers compensation and they would properly contribute to the pool. That is the difference. They would properly be covered and they would properly contribute to the pool.

Mr Speaker, the government also draws attention to a person who is an IT contractor, a sole trader and owns his or her own business. The business contracts with another company and the IT contractor works full time for that company for a period of four weeks, then full time with another company for an eight-week contract, and then full

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