Wednesday, 26 August 2026

 Cindy McLEISH (Eildon) (15:20): I was wondering when we would get on to the Workplace Legislation Amendment (Accident Compensation and Other Matters) Bill 2026, and I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on this bill. The purpose of this bill is about improving the workers compensation system by cutting red tape for employers who self-insure and strengthening OH&S in Victoria by changing the employee representative arrangements. It is argued that this is to make them work better. The bill covers off on several areas: supported or specialist disability accommodation; financial guarantees for self-insurers, and this is around surety bonds; powers of authorised representatives and health and safety representatives; and a number of administrative arrangements related to the WorkSafe Victoria board chair and the medical panel fees.

Interestingly, all of these are unrelated, and that allows the government to put good things in with bad things. And I think that is probably what they have done here. We have got a number of acts that are being amended: the Workplace Injury Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 2013 and the Accident Compensation Act 1985 – that is the main legislation that governs the Victorian WorkCover Authority and the compensation schemes – and also the Transport Accident Act 1986 and the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004.

The changes around supported accommodation – specialist accommodation – and the surety bonds for self-insurers came around by fairly simplistic means. I am going to start with them, and I will start with the specialist disability accommodation. This is in place to clarify existing practices and arrangements. So this is a clarification, and this is an easy spot to start. SDA is specially designed housing for people with extreme functional impairment or very high support needs. This will include homes with wheelchair access hoists or automated doors. For people that have suffered serious and profound injuries through a workplace accident, or more likely through a serious car accident, this is particularly important, because often things need to be modified. Homes and cars need to be modified to cope with the wheelchair access and hoists and automated doors.

Ordinarily TAC and WorkSafe are not liable to fund accommodation costs. Accommodation costs are in the same category as daily living expenses like food and personal items, which are the responsibility of the person. However, the amendments and modifications made to homes and vehicles are included. What has happened is that there has been a drafting error, so these amendments seek to correct a drafting error from legislation in 2024 which makes it clear that WorkSafe will continue to fund supported accommodation arising from a workplace or transport injury, but it will not be liable – this is the critical bit – for the separate housing costs of NDIS-funded specialist disability accommodation. It was unintentionally ambiguous, and these changes are to restore the intended legal position. It has been the longstanding policy position that accommodation costs are generally considered ordinary living expenses. There have been no issues around this to date, so that is a good thing. There could be something in the future, and this will just clarify it so that there is not. Even though everyone understands the intent and it has been the arrangement in place, this will just make that clarification in legislation clear. This needs to be done, and the coalition certainly supports that element of the bill.

I will move on to one of the financial guarantees for self-insurers, which is around surety bonds. Self-insurance is an option under the WorkCover scheme, and there are 33 self-insurers in Victoria. They are large insurers, and they operate in multiple states. You can think of any of the banks – Westpac has been a self-insurer since inception in 1985; BHP; Melbourne Water, which only operates in Victoria, but many others operate interstate and have come on board over time; Mars; Qantas; and RACV. These are organisations, companies actually, that people will know. They manage their own liabilities. That is part of the self-insurer deal and represents about 5 per cent of the WorkCover scheme. As part of that deal, self-insurers are required to provide WorkSafe with financial guarantees to ensure injured workers will receive the compensation they are entitled to. If an employer fails, if something happens and they exit the scheme, if they have financial distress and market issues and should they fall over, they have to have money there so that anyone who has a worker’s compensation claim will continue to be serviced and receive the entitlements they are receiving. Currently, self-insurers provide bank guarantees. Under the act they provide these guarantees, which are in favour of WorkSafe, equal to about 1.5 times their claims liability or about $3 million, whichever is greater. In the event that a self-insurer fails to pay their liabilities as they fall due, the WorkCover authority can step in, obtain the funds from the bank and pay those liabilities directly.

In order to obtain a bank guarantee, a self-insurer needs to provide the bank with cash or property as collateral – if you are a very large employer, this is a lot of money – as well as pay a range of fees. The assets provided as collateral are effectively mortgaged, so they cannot be borrowed against or sold without the bank guarantee being discharged. This in itself can cause issues, and it is an expensive mechanism should they need to sell some things and put something else up as guarantee, because the WorkCover authority needs to have that certainty. This amendment allows self-insured or non-WorkCover employers to use surety bonds instead of a bank guarantee as long as they meet Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) and financial safeguards. These surety bonds will provide an alternative way to guarantee the liabilities that are paid in the event of default. In effect, the surety bond is like an insurance policy. A self-insurer will obtain a surety bond in favour of the Victorian WorkCover Authority, again equal to 1½ times their claim liabilities, or $3 million. Unlike with a bank guarantee, though, a self-insurer will not have to put up assets as collateral. However, the cost of the bond is likely to be far higher because it is not secured. In any event, if the self-insurer defaults, a surety bond insurer would pay that outstanding amount.

The bank guarantees and surety bonds need to be issued by APRA-regulated entities. This is viewed quite positively by the stakeholders, the Self Insurers Association of Victoria, who claim the current arrangements are costly and inflexible and tie up collateral and have an impact on the balance sheet. What this may also do is make it easier for new entrants into self-insurance. That is not the aim, but it is interesting that Victoria has the lowest rate of self-insurer insurance. If you have a look at Safe Work Australia’s national comparison, which does its best to compare – every state does things a little bit differently, but it does the best that it can – there are 71 self-insurer licences in South Australia and 70 in New South Wales. In Victoria there are only 34. New South Wales is comparable in size to us, but maybe they are going a bit better than us. South Australia is probably going a bit better than us too, and Victoria is much lower. So this is a sensible change. It can make life easier for those self-insured or those seeking to be self-insured. The coalition supports this component.

There are a number of administrative arrangements related to the WorkSafe board chair. Interestingly, the processes around the appointment and fees for the chair of WorkSafe are different to the directors, so this change brings it in line. What it does is it gives the minister the power to set and adjust the chair’s terms and conditions. It removes the process of going through the Governor in Council. That is interesting. I see more and more of this bypassing of the Governor in Council, and generally the coalition has no problem with this.

There are also components around the medical panel fees. It allows the minister to set the fees and costs paid to medical panel members rather than their being set by the Governor in Council and gazetted. I will say a couple of things about medical panels. I have had a lot to do with those over the years. Medical panels were set up to adjudicate on medical issues. Rather than the insurer’s doctor saying one thing and the worker’s doctor saying another thing, there is a referral to the medical panel, and they are specialists who are accredited or approved to be on that list. There can be two or three panellists, doctors, who talk together and determine what they think is the level of impairment for someone. There were changes to WorkSafe a little while ago, and that resulted in massive delays of eight to nine months with medical panels. That is significant. It is coming down a little bit. I think they have had to put extra people on to bring that down. But in the main, the coalition does not have a problem with the medical panel fees.

I want to move now to the perhaps more contentious area of the powers of authorised representatives and health and safety representatives. In August 2025, a year ago, the government commissioned an independent review into the powers and functions of and supports for employee representatives to see if they were still effective and fit for purpose. The arguments were that the OH&S acthad been operating for 20 years, workplace arrangements had changed quite a lot and there were different types of hire work. The government looked at the insecurity of people who are not permanent employees; they were very worried about insecurity. There was the rise of remote and hybrid work and some safety challenges in high-risk industries – and there is a lot of high-risk work happening at the minute. There have also been some reforms in labour hire and other workplace protections.

The review was to look at whether the current employee representation framework still enabled workers to effectively raise and resolve safety concerns and whether legislative, regulatory and operational changes were needed. They were to look at a whole bunch of different areas: the effectiveness of the health and safety representatives, the ARREOs, right of entry notice requirements, powers to inspect documents and to speak with workers, the penalties and the eligibility criteria for employee representatives and training and support things. It was reasonably broad. I am not sure that that was conducted by somebody particularly independent and not with the government’s agenda in mind. Eugene White was the barrister. He made 17 recommendations, several of which informed the changes to the powers of health and safety representatives and ARREOs, which are the authorised representatives of registered employee organisations. These amendments are a significant change in the powers of WorkSafe inspectors, with greater powers to investigate matters onsite, copy whatever documents they deem necessary and extend any notices or bans to multiple sites owned by the same interests. At the same time there are some new penalties for using any material they gather in the public domain and enforcement action for intimidation of staff or workplaces. I will have a lot more to say about these, because I have received a lot of feedback.

The changes give workplace health and safety reps greater powers to access relevant documents and investigate additional safety breaches they uncover during a workplace visit. They can photocopy papers, and it allows them to investigate other matters that they believe necessary. To some degree the legislation cracks down – I am not sure, but ‘cracks down’ might be a bit strong – on misuse of workplace safety powers by preventing representatives from improperly sharing, publishing or live streaming information gathered during those investigations, and it introduces penalties for coercion or interference in health and safety representative elections. It gives WorkSafe inspectors greater powers to make binding safety decisions at multi-employer workplaces, such as construction sites and even shopping centres, while standardising and digitising improvement notices.

There are also measures which give ARREOs powers to investigate a new issue without leaving and re-entering a premises, as is the current practice. I have done quite a lot of consultation around this, and I have had some very extensive and thoughtful feedback from a number of groups. I have spoken with the Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Business Council of Australia, Master Builders Victoria, the South East Melbourne Manufacturers Alliance and the Australian Industry Group, and there are a lot of concerns. I am going to talk to those concerns now because they bother me as well.

The sweeping access to company documents is a concern. Employers strongly oppose the expanded powers of health and safety reps and union reps, the ARREOs, to access, copy and remove documents, citing risks, and fairly I would say, to commercial confidentiality, privacy and sensitive business information. Just to clarify so people in the house understand: health and safety representatives are employees elected by their colleagues under a designated work group to represent health and safety interests, and ARREOs are union officials who hold valid permits, allowing them to enter workplaces to inquire into suspected OH&S breaches. Some of the feedback that I have received is that this is complete overreach. We are against it. What if we have critical infrastructure documentation? And how does a business set out to protect confidential information? Is that off the table or is that not off the table? It is quite possible that there will be a lot of confidential information. It might be the nature of subcontracting, it might be other projects that they are looking at, like joint ventures, or different things that they have got in place that are not in the public domain. There are some safeguards, but we think that they are inadequate. Groups are very worried about whether this can become an unfettered fishing expedition for documents that contain personal and sensitive information.

I have mentioned commercial-in-confidence information, confidential information, but what about if it is information on bullying allegations? I think particularly about a lot of the workplaces, the worksites at the minute where there has been well documented on government Big Build projects a lot of bullying and harassment of women. That is something that the employer should have documents on because of the safety. If the ARREO’s mate or the health and safety rep’s mate is perhaps somebody who is being accused or alleged to have done things, for these representatives to go into their workplace and demand to see those documents may have consequences. This is serious. These are serious issues because people are frightened. People have spoken up and are frightened at some of these workplaces. They do live in fear of, I guess, intimidation from the CFMEU, and we have outlaw motorbike gangs and organised crime on these Big Build sites. If some of these people are the health and safety reps or ARREOs, I think that that is absolutely fair enough.

Photos to copy documents are likely to be taken on phones. You can imagine that you go somewhere and you have got your phone. It is your private phone; it is your work phone. How long are they kept, and what happens with unauthorised or improper use? Some of these groups do not feel like they have any reason to push back here. On this protection of privacy, if somebody who has put in a bullying and harassment allegation has not yet put in a claim but has made a list against a number of people, somebody can go in and see they have a list of 10 people that these claims are being made against. I have mentioned commercial confidentiality, privacy obligations, sensitive business information and ensuring that information obtained under OH&S powers is not used for purposes unrelated to WorkSafe safety.

I do note that ARREO permits can be taken away – they can be disqualified – and the government has maintained that these changes do not displace privacy, secrecy and confidentiality requirements. The feedback here is about the scope of the powers and what pushback they have.

On the inadequate safeguards against misuse, employers argue that the proposed prohibition on publishing documents online does not adequately prevent information being shared with unions, Trades Hall or other third parties, while questioning whether penalties for misuse will actually be enforced. It does not address security issues, as I have mentioned, if copies are made using a personal device, nor timeframes for removal.

The regulatory overreach and disruption is another area. The expanded ARREO investigation and multi-employer powers could allow representatives to pursue a shopping list of additional allegations, potentially disrupting worksites, delaying projects and increasing costs.

On WorkSafe having the ability to investigate and enforce, employers argue that WorkSafe, as the independent regulator, already has extensive investigative and document-gathering powers. The priority should be improving WorkSafe’s responsiveness, consistency and enforcement, rather than transferring some of these investigative powers to employees or union representatives.

There are concerns about more regulation and costs for employers, and the overarching concern is the bill increases regulatory burden without demonstrating improved safety outcomes. I think it is fair to say that in this place everybody wants improved safety outcomes. There are too many claims, there are too many bad accidents and the bullying and harassment on government sites is too great.

Potentially there are increasing compliance costs and premiums, making Victoria less attractive for investment. We already know Victoria is not so attractive for investment, with the huge number of taxes that have been introduced by this government. We talk to employer groups regularly who move interstate and who talk about moving interstate. I look at the Labor government in South Australia, who are actively poaching Victorian employers with incitements for payroll tax or reduced premiums on certain things. South Australia is having a crack at stealing employers from here, and because the environment is not so great, they are looking, they are going interstate, they are going to New South Wales and Queensland.

Employers also ask the question about the misuse provisions, reflecting the existing problems with the bullying, coercion or misuse of representative powers on major construction projects. It has been put to me – and I am sure this will be no surprise – that some of the worst abuses and misuses of safety representative powers are in the construction sector. There are concerns that this will be, but should not be, weaponised for industrial, criminal and other purposes. I have mentioned the CFMEU. The Electrical Trades Union, I understand, are doing some of their work now, so the ETU might be meeting with the Premier rather than the CFMEU. On the ministerial diary disclosures, it looks as though they are just meeting with the ETU, who are doing the bidding of the CFMEU.

I have had so much feedback on some of the issues here that it is staggering to keep up with the amount. One of the other areas that I wanted to touch base on is the investigation of new issues without leaving and re-entering for ARREOs. Currently an ARREO is limited to investigating a suspected contravention that they have provided notice of prior to entering that workplace. They cannot make inquiries about a new or suspected contravention without leaving and re-entering the workplace and providing a new notice of suspected contravention. The balance has to be right here, because if they see something, they have got to walk outside and then come back in. There is an issue here of how that looks, and whether they hang around, stay all day and take up a lot of time. This has not been supported by the stakeholders that I have dealt with. This change means that the scope of an entry can expand pretty well while a visit is underway. If this person makes a nuisance of themselves, continues to stay all day and requires somebody from that employer group to spend that time with them, this could become frivolous.

You have got to strike the balance here, because you do need some things that are streamlined. You want things to work smoothly, but you have to have the right balance. When a new notice comes in of a suspected contravention, the company site management receive it, and they will have to assess it in real time without pause and make personnel available almost immediately. Those personnel might be some distance away. They could be in a different workplace. This can cause quite a number of problems. The issues that I have received from the stakeholders show that clauses 22, 23, 25 and 27 are particularly concerning, and the opposition does not support those clauses. Whilst we are supporting a number of areas of this bill, we are not supporting those.

I want to touch on some other administrative improvements that are being made to the OH&S representation framework, and they are in relation to WorkSafe intervening in and making determinations on disputes between employers and health and safety reps on workplace safety matters. Currently they can only make determinations on or in relation to the designated work groups – functional workplaces and functional areas of business that usually have their own health and safety rep where they involve a single employer. In workplaces where there are multiple employers, such as a major construction site involving alliances or consortia, you can have a work group that is made up of people from different employers. That is just what will happen. Seemingly the inspectors cannot currently make determinations in respect of these multi-employer groups; they can only make recommendations or provide advice. This will allow them to make determinations. Conceivably this could be a problem area, as the health and safety reps’ and WorkSafe determinations have been used as instruments in industrial disputes rather than for genuine OH&S reasons. There are many issues that I have raised here that I am concerned about. The restrictions on using and publishing WorkSafe information are a two-way street. If an ARREO publishes material onsite, WorkSafe can prosecute. If a health and safety rep does the same thing, the only available response is for the employer to take its own employee to the Magistrates’ Court. That is probably not going to happen. People would be very reluctant to do that.

With regard to new offences of threatening, intimidating or coercive behaviours, if there is threatening, intimidating or coercive behaviour to somebody over a health and safety rep election or over whether a representative issues a notice, this has never been acceptable conduct, and this bill creates two new offences directed at that conduct. The explanatory memorandum confirms that they are intended to protect employers, employees, health and safety representatives and other participants alike. That balanced approach is certainly welcome, but given the provisions apply in both directions, perhaps it is a good idea – and I encourage the minister to take this on board – to have public reporting on enforcement activity. That would help demonstrate that the framework is operating as intended. I think that that is something that the government should give consideration to. It is a two-way street, so let us show everybody. Let us be transparent. Apparently transparency is a new thing for the current Premier, but let us see whether this will be included or can be changed or looked at in future, because I think that is not a bad option. I want to thank the minister’s office for the briefings and being so forthcoming, but I also want to thank the multiple people – employer groups and employers – who gave me extensive feedback about some of their concerns.

One final one somebody mentioned is about sensitive commercial information. Once it is outside a business’s custody or control, it will be hard to preserve this confidentiality. I meant to mention that earlier. It is not only having access but keeping things confidential outside the business operator’s circle of influence, and that makes it very difficult. We are opposing this bill, and we will split it in the other place.

 Nina TAYLOR (Albert Park) (15:50): This bill indeed makes practical improvements to Victoria’s workers compensation framework to ensure it remains effective, efficient and fair for injured workers, employers and the broader community. There is balance on all fronts. It does reduce unnecessary regulatory burden and costs while maintaining strong protections for workers. It also supports Victoria’s reputation as a safe place to work and a business-friendly place to invest and grow. A little note for the opposition: I do not think it is very good to trash-talk Victoria and talk business et cetera down. I do not see how that in any way helps our state. I actually love our state and respect our businesses and our community, and I think it is important to always back them in. But anyway, I will move back to the broader premise of the bill.

The bill does indeed respond to the findings of the independent review of employee representatives, led by respected barrister Mr Eugene White. Again, I am not sure there is any place for undermining the independence of the review; I do not see how that lends itself to this particular debate. I just want to put that out there and emphasise that it was an independent review. It strengthens the ability of health and safety representatives to identify and resolve workplace safety issues while ensuring powers are exercised appropriately and responsibly, respecting that that balance has to be maintained. It addresses coercion and misuse of information and supports the integrity of the occupational health and safety representation framework, because under this government, integrity is not optional.

I used to be a union organiser, and I quite often would assist health and safety representatives, and I know that it is a difficult role. It is a nuanced role. It was not to do with state matters, I should say, and those matters have long since been acquitted, so I am not actually raising a particular case. But I am just reflecting on the responsibility that they carry and the delicate nuance that there is when you are having to raise matters. It is tricky in your own workplace, ensuring that workers feel protected and respected and that it is safe for them to raise legitimate matters but at the same time not stepping over any particular reasonable boundaries that have been set under law.

A particular example I can think of was a case where duress alarms simply were not working; 18 ‍months went by and they simply were not working. I do not think there was any particular malice on the part of the employer; it was just that it was a cost to have to rectify an electrical fault. These particular workers did have a reasonable risk of danger in the work that they did, and so having a working duress alarm certainly was not an unreasonable request. When we are talking about health and safety representatives, I think it is important to see that – certainly in my interactions, and I am sure many can reflect on this – they are loath to raise matters other than where it is necessary to maintain safety in the workplace. Getting a duress alarm fixed was surely a reasonable request and not going above and beyond what was fair, bearing in mind the circumstances within which they worked. I really respected the way that they were professional and very much wanted to maintain that collaborative approach with their employer, to work through matters in a way that did not in any way cause tension in the relationship, because of course they had to work with each other each and every day. Maintaining that collaborative relationship, backed in by good workplace laws, is really important. The reason I am raising that matter is just to explain, on the one hand, the innate challenge of being a health and safety representative, making sure your colleagues – and that includes your employer and everyone – are safe in their workplace and can actually fulfil the tasks that they are required to do.

I will say, when we are looking more broadly, the bill is about improving the operation of Victoria’s workplace safety, workers compensation and transport accident schemes. It strikes an important balance between reducing unnecessary red tape, supporting businesses, protecting workers and strengthening the integrity of our regulatory framework. I should say that the government remains committed to ensuring Victoria is one of the safest places in the world to work. That is something to be proud of, but it does not happen capriciously, it does not happen just because. It happens because of appropriate regulation and having that buy-in, for want of a better word, of health and safety reps who are prepared to undertake that role and making sure that those who are living the role day in, day out know the challenges and the risks and are able to safely raise matters that need to be addressed as they arise.

The bill strengthens the role of health and safety representatives by providing better access to relevant information. That is a really important point here: it is not any information, it is relevant information. That in itself raises a caveat in terms of the necessity of that information being accessed to improve the timely resolution of workplace safety issues. Coming back to that other example of a duress alarm needing to be repaired, having a timely resolution of that issue without too much fuss for all the right reasons would make good sense. I know there are many, many other contingencies and many other examples that people can raise, but I am just using that to illustrate the point.

With stronger powers – and I do want to in this way also address some of the concerns raised by those opposite about the boundaries within which this legislation should operate – the bill creates clear protections against coercion and misuse of information and prevents inappropriate online publication of material obtained through statutory powers. There you can see a clearly outlined boundary that must be respected. These reforms protect privacy, safeguard sensitive information and strengthen confidence in the occupational health and safety framework.

When we are talking about supporting business while protecting the scheme, something that was spoken to a little bit earlier in the debate, the introduction of surety bonds offers employers greater flexibility and lowers costs without weakening protections for injured workers or exposing the WorkCover scheme to greater risk. This is a practical reform that supports investment and business growth while preserving appropriate financial safeguards. The TAC and WorkSafe Victoria amendments are technical in nature. They correct unintended drafting consequences from earlier legislation and restore the longstanding policy approach that accommodation costs are generally personal living expenses rather than compensable costs. The amendments provide certainty but also avoid costly legal ambiguity, so these are important reforms that are being incorporated into the bill.

Overall, if you look at what the bill is delivering in total, the bill is a practical package of reforms that improves workplace safety, strengthens the integrity of Victoria’s occupational health and safety system, reduces unnecessary red tape and provides greater certainty for employers and workers alike. It delivers on this government’s commitments to ensure Victoria remains both one of the safest places in the world to work and one of the best places to do business. These are sensible, balanced reforms that support workers, support employers and protect the long-term sustainability of the WorkCover and TAC schemes.

This government will always back reforms that improve safety, support productivity and deliver better outcomes for Victorian workers and employers. You can see that this bill is about striking the right balance: backing in the safety of our workers but also respecting the needs and boundaries with business. It is important that all those facets are taken into account, and that has been done in a very diligent and cogent manner.

Business interrupted under sessional orders.