Private Members Time: Workers Compensation

Ms BURNET (Clark) – Thank you, honourable Speaker. I'd like to thank Ms Haddad for bringing this very important and timely motion. Before I start my contribution, I will move an amendment to the motion which I've circulated and it reads:

In paragraph 4 after 'system' -

Insert 'Before the independent review of the Workers Rehabilitation and Compensation Scheme has been completed and tabled.'

I'll speak to both the motion and the amendment together because I don't want to take up too much time. I know that others have important contributions to make. I want to say at the outset: the thrust of the motion is one I wholeheartedly agree with. The Tasmanian government must address the underlying causes of psychological injury in its own workforce. Where I part company with the motion is on its central demand that the government should categorically rule out any changes to workers' compensation that would reduce entitlements, and let me explain why: workers' compensation is a social safety net as fundamental to this state as Medicare. So, when the Treasurer makes comments that leave injured workers fearing the worst, that's not a slip of the tongue; that is a warning shot, and it has been heard.

The minister is also advised, as he must be, by the WorkCover board, which carries a statutory function under the Workers Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988, to advise on the policy and objectives of legislation relating to workers' rehabilitation and compensation, to advise on the amendment or replacement of that legislation, and to monitor and report on how effectively that legislation and the systems beneath it are actually working. The board has commissioned a broader review of the entire workers rehabilitation and compensation scheme, to be run by an independent review panel. Consultation on the terms of reference is open now and closes on 10 September. What happens after has not been made public, but I welcome this independent review. I've read the draft terms of reference; they're a good start. They look at the impact of psychological injury, but the framing is overwhelmingly about costs, and that's a concern: cost to the scheme, cost to the budget, cost to premiums. What is missing is an examination of the cause of psychological injury: why are psychological injury claims rising, not how do we contain the bill and the cost, but what is actually happening to Tasmanian workers, and how might we reduce it?

The review also needs to look at the claims management component, which has arguably become unnecessarily adversarial, and I hear that from people in that workforce, a feeding ground for lawyers and medical consultants charging big bucks. The review should be asking the question: are injured workers receiving the benefits the scheme was designed to provide? How much expenditure reaches treatment and rehabilitation? How much is spent on claims administration, legal services and independent medical examinations? How much leaves Tasmania as corporate profit? Shouldn't the scheme be funnelling the limited resources we have into better treatment and rehabilitation instead of the insurance sector?

If this review is serious, it must also look at workplace culture, it must look at job design and workload intensification, and this has already been aired by Ms Haddad and Dr Woodruff. It must look at the isolating effects of remote and hybrid work and the broader cultural shifts reshaping how Tasmanians work, and it must look somewhere the government would rather it didn't, at secondary claims process induced psychological injury, the harm caused not by the original workplace incident but by the compensation process itself, and this can be very devastating: a worker injured once by their workplace and injured again by the system meant to help them. The review must examine the regulation of psychosocial hazards properly, drawing on the regulator's own data, including the narrative data, the actual stories behind the claims, because the numbers alone will not tell us what is driving this.

I share the concerns raised in paragraph 3 of the motion: understaffing, excessive workloads, inadequate support, workplace violence. These are real and they are serious. I met with the CPSU last week on this very matter and the union as with other unions, is concerned about the impacts on public servants. I want to add more to the list that's in clause 3 because it's too often left unsaid in this place. We have to think about the workplace culture, the toxic manager, the toxic team, the workplace where people learn not to speak up because nothing changes when they do. Under this government - and it's not only this government, I might add - I don't believe these situations are being managed, and I believe that failure is feeding directly into the rise of psychological injury claims we are debating today.

I'll give the example of the code of conduct process. The Australian Medical Association submission on the commission of inquiry bill records its members reporting prolonged, adversarial, expensive and damaging code of conduct and employment direction 5 process. I know how damaging this is from health professionals I've spoken to. Matters drag on for months or years before they even reach the Australian Health Practitioners Regulation Agency (AHPRA) or tribunal processes dealing with the very same conduct. The AMA is aware of cases where wrongdoing was admitted, yet the investigation ground on through process after process regardless, when an outcome could have been delivered swiftly, and it is aware of cases where practitioners were entirely cleared of everything, yet the process itself had already driven them out of their jobs or into a workers' compensation claim of their own. It's devastating and it's wrecking people's lives.

Think about what that means: a system that is supposed to protect workers and uphold standards is in some cases doing neither. It is simply grinding people down and damaging workplace morale. This is not a new complaint. The Watt review recommended reform of exactly this process in 2021, but the government did not act. It took a commission of inquiry and then the Woolcott review to force the point home, to spell out in the starkest possible terms the human toll of a broken code of conduct system before this government finally moved. That's the pattern we keep seeing, and we have to break this pattern. I want to make one further point: Tasmania already has the lowest workforce participation rate in the country, which is a massive economic handbrake. That's why we need a system that prioritises keeping people in work and helps them return to work when they are injured, rather than reducing their benefits and consigning them to the scrapheap. This is a productivity issue as much as a health issue.

Let me close where I began: I agree that the government must confront the underlying causes of psychological injury in the government workforce, and I agree that inaction, denial and toxic culture have no place in a modern public service; but I cannot support a motion that asks this government to rule out reform before an independent review has even been reported. That's prejudging the outcome before the evidence is in. That's why I've moved an amendment to the motion to ensure any decisions are evidence based. The more responsible position for a government to take in this is to rule nothing in or out until the independent review has done its work and this parliament has had the chance to consider it properly. This is the amendment I bring to the House. I don't think it weakens the motion; it strengthens it to make sure that it is evidence rather than assumption.