Page 3431 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 11 October 1994
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WORKERS' COMPENSATION (AMENDMENT) BILL 1994
Debate resumed.
MR DE DOMENICO (8.24): Madam Speaker, the Opposition will not be opposing the Bill. In fact, the Bill has been a long time coming. Mr Lamont would agree with that. It is nearly 10 years since he and I sat on a joint working party, at that stage convened by the then Minister, Tom Uren, to look at the anomalies in, and the ways in which we could improve, the ACT Workmen's Compensation Ordinance 1951, as it was then called. I can quite proudly say that the first thing that both Mr Lamont and I picked out was that the name was an anachronism and should be changed.
There are going to be interesting situations tonight because of the complicated way of dealing with amendments. The Government and the Opposition seem to be as one on most amendments that will be put forward, and I hope that we will work through those very quickly. The only area of disagreement relates to one particular clause. The rest of the amendments are consequential on other amendments. The particular amendment I refer to is my amendment No. 7, which relates to the termination proposal. In essence, what this Bill supposedly does is link occupational rehabilitation with the concept of termination. I say at the outset that the Liberal Party will not be opposing the legislation; we will be moving certain amendments. I will leave my further remarks to those amendments.
MS SZUTY: (8.26) Madam Speaker, I wish to note at the outset of my remarks on this Bill the very lengthy consultation and discussion process which has been going on now for some considerable time, as mentioned by Mr De Domenico. In his presentation speech, the Minister for Industrial Relations, Mr Lamont, described the process for the consideration of an occupational rehabilitation scheme undertaken by the Workers Compensation Monitoring Committee since 1991. At that time the Government encouraged all parties, including insurers, employers, unions and government representatives, to be involved in developing an appropriate scheme, which hopefully would have the support of all before it came into being. My understanding of the position now, some three years later, is that all parties have agreed on a rehabilitation protocol, but agreement has yet to be reached on the content of the Bill itself. It would be fair to say that agreement is not going to be reached at this stage. It is noted that the provisions outlined in the Bill are also interim provisions and may not necessarily reflect the provisions of the legislation in its final form.
Madam Speaker, I have no argument with the objectives of the Bill as proposed by the Government. The Bill aims to provide injured workers in the private sector with access to occupational rehabilitation. It contains provisions aimed at ensuring that employers more quickly commence weekly compensation payments to injured workers. It facilitates the termination of those payments to workers who are no longer entitled to receive them. It is simply commonsense that the early provision of occupational rehabilitation will assist workers, who are unfortunate enough to be injured, to recover more quickly from the trauma of an injury; thereby reducing the compensation costs payable because of the injury.
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