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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 6 Hansard (18 June) . . Page.. 2044 ..

MR SMYTH

He then claimed that there would be problems with insurance-the old furphy "Oh, the insurance market doesn't like it, flight of capital, the companies are going to flee."Mr Speaker, you will remember that that was one of the fears put by mini-groups when together we passed the workers compensation bill-"We won't be able to bear this. It will drive us away. We will have to leave. Woe is us."They didn't.

Perhaps what the Treasurer does not know is that some of them even like the workers compensation reform. Minister Gallagher was very kind to send some of her officers to my office yesterday to talk about the workers compensation reform package that I think will be tabled tomorrow. We were told that some of the big companies are very happy with the new system. Officers from the Chief Minister's Department actually said, "Ours is the easiest jurisdiction to deal with because of early intervention and it was the clarity of the legislation that made it a joy to be here."So, consequently, Treasurer, I would say you perhaps need to get the same briefing Ms Gallagher is offering members.

The other thing that we were told in the briefing yesterday was that other jurisdictions are now looking at the model we have taken. The ACT has lead on this. One year in it appears to be working, and I note that one year is a short time in these fields. But it does seem to be working and other jurisdictions are starting to copy our early notification, acceptance and intervention model. Why? Because it is cheaper long term. It will be cheaper. There is a little bit of extra cost up front, but what it means is you do not get the big payouts at the end, and that is what is leading to the volatility.

What it means is you do not get the long timeframes, and that is the other factor that leads to volatility. If you take those two out of the equation, what it means is people can get reasonable health care and early intervention as soon as the injury occurs. Early intervention works. Someone stand up and tell me that early intervention does not work.

We were then told that the ACT is too small-"We can't do this, we're too small."The Labor government will not do it because they do not have the courage or wit. We were too small on the workers comp and it has worked. Does this mean that the Treasurer or Ms Gallagher, as the minister responsible, will be turning back the clock two years and saying, "Because we are too small, we shouldn't have done that workers compensation thing back then anyway. How dare we have the temerity to do that, because we're too small"? This is absolutely amazing.

We were not too small when we launched No Waste by 2010. It is an ambitious target and it will be interesting to see if we make it. Jurisdictions from around the world-everywhere from Mexico City, the Solomons and Singapore to South Africa-have visited the ACT over the last four or five years to look at this initiative. The Wales no waste recycling community network is now looking to us as the model. Too small! I reject that argument.

Why aren't you big enough to get out there and do it? Why aren't you game enough to make an effort and why aren't you brave enough to try to make a difference when we can? Too small is unacceptable because if we accept too small we will never do anything different. We will follow other jurisdictions because they are big. "Let's follow the New South Wales workers compensation scheme, because they're big."And they have got a big debt-I think it is about $8 billion unfunded. "That's a good idea, let's follow that."Too small, I think, is the easy way out. (Extension of time granted.)

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