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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 10 Hansard (28 August) . . Page.. 3450 ..


MR SMYTH (Minister for Urban Services, Minister for Business, Tourism and the Arts and Minister for Police and Emergency Services) (10.28): Mr Berry makes the comment that this is about claims and not about rehab or anything else. The whole bill is about rehabilitation in the workers compensation process. You cannot deal with one part of this bill in isolation from the other.

Mr Berry talked about an injured bus driver. What he does not talk about is that for the first 26 weeks this person gets his pre-injury income, including overtime; that he gets a rehabilitation plan; that he gets a return-to-work plan. What you have to attain first is three months durable return to work. There is a single test in the case of the brain injured worker and a court would clearly say the injury of maims payment should be made immediately.

Let us not confuse the two. The whole purpose of the bill is to move, where possible, towards rehabilitating workers back to a durable return to work. That is what this achieves.

Question put:

That Mr Berry's amendment No 7 to Mr Smyth's amendment No 19 be agreed to.

The Assembly voted-

 	Ayes, 7  			Noes, 8

 Mr Berry  	Mr Quinlan  	Mrs Burke  	Mr Moore
 Mr Corbell  	Mr Stanhope  	Mr Cornwell  	Mr Rugendyke
 Mr Hargreaves  Ms Tucker  	Mr Hird  	Mr Smyth
 Mr Osborne    			Mr Kaine  	Mr Stefaniak
Question so resolved in the negative.

Mr Berry's amendment negatived.

Suspension of standing order 76

Motion (by Mr Moore ) agreed to, with the concurrence of an absolute majority:

That standing order 76 be suspended for this sitting.

MS TUCKER (10.34): I move amendment No 3 [see schedule 5, purple sheet, at page 3546] to Mr Smyth's amendment No 19.

This simple amendment, which relates to paragraph (2) (b) of proposed new section 11H, seeks to insert the word "ignorance," before "mistake" to ensure that ignorance of a workers compensation scheme or requirements does not preclude a worker from reasonably pursuing a claim, even if a notice of the injury was not given at the time.


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