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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 10 Hansard (28 August) . . Page.. 3434 ..

Amendment agreed to.

MR BERRY (9.21): I move my amendment No 2 on the gold sheet to Mr Smyth's amendment No 17 [see schedule 4, gold sheet, at page 3542].

This goes to the same issue in relation to partial incapacity, so I do not think I need to repeat myself. It is essentially the same as the earlier amendment but it is for partial incapacity. If somebody hurts themselves and is entitled to workers compensation within two years before pension age, then they are entitled to workers compensation benefits for the full two years.

MR SMYTH (Minister for Urban Services, Minister for Business, Tourism and the Arts and Minister for Police and Emergency Services) (9.22): This amendment is illogical. If a worker aged 64 and 11 months injures himself, under Mr Berry's amendment they are entitled to compensation for two years.

How then does the employer, under the act, come up with a return-to-work plan for somebody who has retired? The employer would be saying, "I am going to give you compensation for doing work, but under the law I am obliged to give you a return-to-work plan. But you are not going to come back to work." This amendment is illogical, because it flies in the face of the return-to-work provisions in the act.

This will add to the cost of the scheme. Even Mr Berry has said that we need to work on bringing premiums down. Yet he is saying that it is okay for the employer to carry this cost, but at the same the employer will be unable to make good his obligation under the act, which is to make sure that the injured worker has a return-to-work plan. The worker is going to retire. The worker should be covered for the period up to 65, and then they would be covered by pension provisions.

The government will oppose this amendment, as it opposed the last. I ask those who voted in favour of last amendment to consider the illogical nature of that which Mr Berry puts here. Under the act an employer has to put together a return-to-work plan for somebody who is never coming back to work. How does an employer find work for them? How does the employer put together a plan for them? But an employer is to be forced to pay for them anyway. The government will oppose the amendment, as we did the last one.

MR BERRY (9.24): Mr Speaker, this is unbelievable. I accept that this is an increased cost. When I was speaking to the last amendment, I said that I understood this was an increased cost. People do not get injured a month out from retirement just so they can get two years worth of workers compensation. It is not a very pleasant experience being injured at work, I can tell you.

A worker who at the time of the injury being compensated was two years younger than pension age gets two years worth of benefits. But if they get injured six months or a year before reaching pension age, you are going to withdraw everything just because they retire. Yes, of course it is an additional benefit for older injured workers, but they are after all injured. I know that in your scheme of things they are merely a resource for industry, but they are people.

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