Page 1620 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 14 May 2019

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currently proposed in the bill. The amendment is part of the proposal to replace the significant occupational impact test with a serious injury concept. As Mr Barr has articulated, this does not really take into consideration whether the injured person has been receiving defined benefit income replacement, or the injured person’s ability to retrain or undertake appropriate alternative employment.

The new definition provides new broad avenues for pursuing common-law claims. This is in addition to the five per cent threshold. Yes, there will be people who it would be good for, but on the whole we are trying to get a balanced approach and the greatest good for the greatest number of people. This proposal would fundamentally change the scheme and stray away from the principles that have been endorsed by the citizens’ jury.

MR COE (Yerrabi—Leader of the Opposition) (5.57): We make no bones about the fact that what we are proposing today is going to be more generous and more supportive of injured workers. The fact that you have the Labor Party and the Greens voting against this shows just how cushy their relationship is with the insurance companies. They have opted to side with the big financiers as opposed to injured workers.

We have to make sure that we have a reasonable but generous system that takes into account people’s occupation when determining what compensation is payable. Take, for instance, somebody who is an electrician. If an electrician has a disproportionate impact caused by an accident to their fingers, that is going to have a significant impact on their profession. Therefore, there does need to be a narrative test for these situations.

The fact that the Labor Party are not willing to go with this generous form of compensation does a real disservice to their being part of the labour movement. If the Labor Party and the Greens were serious about supporting workers then they would support this amendment. Ms Le Couteur just said that we have to strike a balance. Well, they have erred on the side of insurance companies, as opposed to injured workers. This is a sad day for workers in the territory.

Question put:

That the amendment be agreed to.

The Assembly voted—

Amendment negatived.

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