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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 10 Hansard (25 September) . . Page.. 3671 ..
MS GALLAGHER (continuing):
the continuing interest and commitment shown by the members of the committee and I thank them for their ongoing support and assistance.
Cross-border workers compensation coverage
The bill will implement the new national agreement on cross-border workers compensation arrangements. All state and territory governments have worked cooperatively to develop an agreed national approach to resolve the difficulties that can arise when employers and employees work across more than one workers compensation jurisdiction.This is very important to the ACT given our close proximity to New South Wales and the fact that many of our businesses do work across the border. The changes proposed in the bill will also ensure that the ACT workers compensation scheme is not exposed to claims from workers of other jurisdictions.
The new cross-border provisions will commence operation at the same time as the complementary provisions commence operation in New South Wales. At this time the New South Wales government advises that its legislation will commence on 1 January 2004. The introduction of this bill now will allow the ACT provisions to commence at the same time, subject to formal confirmation of the commencement date by the New South Wales government.
The bill also makes a number of technical amendments to streamline and clarify the operation of the act, which I will briefly outline.
Volunteers
The bill will clarify the operation of provisions related to workers compensation coverage of volunteers. It was intended that under the new scheme volunteers would not require workers compensation coverage unless they were performing voluntary work for commercial or for-profit organisations or fell under a number of other specified categories. The amendments in the bill clarify the intent of the act's provisions relating to volunteers.Trainees
The provisions relating to trainees have been amended to ensure that an adult with a disability participating in a work experience placement arranged by a specialist disability employment service provider is not covered by the act. This reflects similar amendments made to the Workers Compensation Act last year to exclude school-based, work-experience trainees from coverage. The amendments are designed to ensure that the cost of obtaining workers compensation coverage does not impose barriers to the voluntary participation by ACT employers in work experience programs designed to provide on-the-job training to disadvantaged job seekers. As is the case with school based work experience programs, the organisation arranging the work experience placement, rather than the host employer, would obtain insurance to protect participants in the case of accidental injury.
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