Page 3628 - Week 10 - Thursday, 19 September 2019
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Workers Compensation Amendment Bill 2019
Ms Orr, pursuant to notice, presented the bill, its explanatory statement and a Human Rights Act compatibility statement.
Title read by Clerk.
MS ORR (Yerrabi—Minister for Community Services and Facilities, Minister for Disability, Minister for Employment and Workplace Safety and Minister for Government Services and Procurement) (11.27): I move:
That this bill be agreed to in principle.
Today I am pleased to present the Workers Compensation Amendment Bill 2019, which makes amendments to the Workers Compensation Act 1951. Access to workers compensation is a fundamental workplace right. All workers should be able to engage in their employment confident in the knowledge that support services will be provided if they are injured or become ill because of their work.
For the more than 140,000 private sector workers in the ACT the Workers Compensation Act establishes a framework for the delivery of medical, allied health, rehabilitation and income support in the event of work injury. The changes in this bill will ensure that the act continues to cover all workers by aligning important definitions with contemporary work arrangements. It also makes a number of technical amendments to assist administrative clarity and transparency.
One of these changes is to clarify matters in relation to the default insurance fund. The fund provides safety net services for workers who would otherwise be unable to access workers compensation following injury. This might occur if a worker’s employer failed to hold a valid workers compensation policy or if an insurer has been wound up. As currently drafted the act makes a principal contractor responsible for providing workers compensation to the employees of any subcontractor they engage if the subcontractor fails to hold a valid workers compensation policy. If in the rare instance that a subcontractor and the principal of an injured worker are both uninsured this bill will ensure the default insurance fund is able to step in and support the injured worker.
The government wants to support injured workers and believes no-one in the territory should be financially disadvantaged by an employer’s failure to hold compulsory insurance. The proposed amendment will clarify that workers are covered for workers compensation claims where both the contractor and principal are uninsured—in other words, it is not just limited to where the contractor is uninsured. The bill also makes a minor technical amendment to clarify how the levy on workers compensation insurers that funds the safety net insurer’s operations must be calculated.
The bill also addresses the application of the act to family day care and in-home care workers. We know many working parents in the ACT rely on childcare services. This includes more than 1,000 families who choose family day care and in-home care over
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