Wednesday, 21 February 2024

Economy and Infrastructure Committee

Inquiry into the Workplace Injury Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment (WorkCover Scheme Modernisation) Bill 2023

Samantha RATNAM (Northern Metropolitan) (17:25): I rise to speak on the parliamentary inquiry report into the WorkCover bill, recently tabled. Firstly, a big thankyou to the committee members and secretariat staff who essentially worked over summer to complete this really crucial inquiry. It is indeed our Parliament at its best when we can create the opportunities for proper review and investigation of legislation, especially legislation that is so crucial, such as this. I hope it is a practice that we can begin to do more of, similar to what the federal Parliament does as it conducts its business on legislation.

This inquiry was and will be crucial for workers. It found that this Labor government in Victoria developed this harmful bill without adequately consulting stakeholders and without publishing any modelling on the impacts on workers of the proposed changes in the bill. This is evidenced in the government’s failure to actually address the fundamental issues present in Victoria’s WorkCover scheme. Instead the bill they are putting forward stigmatises mental illness and blatantly attacks workers rights by paring back eligibility for injured workers. The bill, if passed, will restrict eligibility to WorkCover support by excluding mental injuries caused by stress or burnout from work activities and increasing the whole-person impairment test to 20 per cent for workers receiving payments after 130 weeks.

Injured workers, unions and other stakeholders had a clear message for the inquiry: this is not the reform that is needed. We all agree the WorkCover scheme needs to be reformed, but this bill will do little to fix it. It will only harm Victorian workers more and leave the system in disarray. This is why, in a minority report submitted together with committee colleagues Mr Ettershank and Ms Purcell, the Greens urge Labor to withdraw the bill, go back to the drawing board and reform the system to help workers, not inflict more harm. In fact what the majority report clearly shows is Labor working with the Liberals to pass reforms that leave workers worse off. They could have worked with the progressive crossbench to improve the WorkCover system but have decided to work with the anti-worker Liberal Party to pass anti-worker laws. The proposed changes will push injured workers into poverty, emergency departments and an already overstretched mental health system. Yet despite the damning evidence heard by the inquiry against these changes, Labor and the Liberals have teamed up to keep this bill alive. Plainly this bill is a desperate attempt by the government to claw back money after deliberately underfunding WorkCover for years, and injured workers are now being expected to foot the bill.

What is needed is a far broader look at WorkCover, with a focus on prevention, rehabilitation and the overall operation of the scheme. Much of that work has actually already been done. There have been multiple reviews into WorkCover over a number of years, including two comprehensive reviews by the Victorian Ombudsman in 2016 and 2019. Many of these reviews included detailed recommendations to improve the scheme. The changes proposed in this bill are inconsistent with the findings and recommendations of these reviews, the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System and the government’s own mental health policy. So we are asking the government to listen to the advice provided by numerous inquiries, to listen to the unions and to listen to the voices of injured workers. They are calling for systemic reform, not these regressive, bandaid solutions. Labor’s anti-worker bill must be withdrawn.