Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Legislation Amendment (Exit Arrangements) Bill 2015. At this time of the day—after the big, long night of the budget—I suppose people are starting to feel a little weary, and it is hard to keep your attention on these things. It is really important to pay attention, because something really important could happen if this legislation were allowed to go through in the way this government is proposing.

The purpose of this bill has been discussed in very different ways in the contributions from both sides of the chamber this evening. The explanatory memorandum of this bill states:

The Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988 (the Act) establishes a scheme (the Comcare scheme) to provide compensation and rehabilitation support to injured Australian Government and Australian Capital Territory employees, as well as employees of private corporations that hold a licence under the Act.

It sounds like a mouthful, and by the time you get to the end of a few sentences like that it is very easy to have your eyes start to glaze over. But we have to remember that at the heart of this piece of legislation is either a positive or a negative outcome for people who find themselves injured while at work. That could be any one of us or any of the people we love or care for or any of the people we work with. This is not an abstract concept, this is not an abstract set of words and it is not a meaningless set of words, even though it does sound like that in the way that it is written for the purposes of legislation. This is about people and real outcomes for people.

In fact, this piece of legislation is more complicated in the way that it has come before this parliament than many others, because this is part of a suite of three bills that are dealing with Comcare. That is why we need to be really careful about what we are doing with it. Senator Lines, Senator Cameron and Senator Bilyk have made very strong claims, articulating our concerns about the haste with which this is being attempted to be pushed through the parliament by the government, and I think with good cause. One of the things that my kids say these days, using a very descriptive word, is that things may be 'dodgy'. I have every feeling that there is something dodgy going on here—the sense of speeding to get this piece of legislation through.

The fact is that, only as recently as 25 February this year, the ACT government announced that it was going to leave Comcare. When that announcement happened, pretty much at the same time the Territory government also announced that it was going to conduct a six-week consultation period before deciding on the design of the new scheme—whatever it might look like. That consultation period has been open to some discussion. There are concerns about how private those conversations have been and there are concerns about why such an important discussion about a scheme that could affect so many people here in the ACT has not been held in a much more public way. Given that the consultation period ended on 8 May, just last Friday, it is really quite remarkable that we are in the week of the budget and this piece of legislation has been rushed into this place.

Pardon me: I do not usually like cynics or cynicism, but I have to say that the alarm bells are ringing at this point in time. What on earth is going on here? A secret, quiet process over six weeks, an attempt to push this through and no chance for us to have the great scrutiny of this bill that the Senate committees can undertake. Labor's first priority with regard to this bill is to ensure that we get the bill right. To do that we need to make sure that any design of any new scheme is going to provide at least the same protection. In my view, if you have an opportunity to review, you should look to ways that would enhance the protection. We can enhance the financial outcome too—they are not necessarily mutually exclusive goals—but we should be determining that this scheme will advance the cause of the people who are going to be sadly caught up in it.

The ACT government, from what I can gather, have made a commitment to work with the stakeholders. There should be sufficient time allowed to unearth any outstanding matters and have public scrutiny of the process, public consideration of what is proposed, and certainly those who have been affected may have some particularly valuable insights that they could bring to the process. In a way, one of the reasons why I am so concerned about this process is that I watched the failure of the government to consult in a public way prior to the last budget—the very first budget that they delivered—particularly with regard to the area of health. Compensation for injured workers is not exactly a health matter, but it is certainly intimately connected with the health sector. We had a government that decided it was a good idea, without consultation, without talking to the RACGP, without talking to the AMA and without talking to any of the state departments of health—they just arbitrarily decided, this week last year—that they were going to bring in a $7 GP co-payment, a GP tax.

Failure of consultation leads to really stupid policies like that, and the government have had to remove themselves from that position to a point. They still have lots and lots of issues with their health policy. They have had to change their minister and they have got to a point now where the minister says she is consulting, but all that is happening in private and it has taken a committee of the Senate to watch what is going on in the health sector publicly and put it on the record. Acting Deputy President Peris, you are well aware of the work of the committee that is doing that and why it is important to have public scrutiny and use the resources of this parliament to put on the record the evidence that experts have to offer, not just people who can get inside a little private room and make some decisions that ultimately might advantage them over others who have less power and less opportunity to have their voice heard.

It is in that context that I really want to emphasise that Labor's first priority is to ensure, with this bill in particular, that there will be no worker worse off. We also want to make sure that there is no structuring of this to provide an incentive to make workers worse off. We wanted it to go to a Senate committee for thorough investigation, but with unseemly haste the government has rushed it here into the chamber. There is something wrong with that attitude. Our story is the Australian Labor story. It is about protecting and promoting the interests of working men and women. The future of Australia, from the values that we hold, is about getting a great job—giving people the opportunity and the support they need to get a job that they can be fulfilled in, where they can go to work each day and come home safely and well. We know that it does not always turn out that way and that people will need, from time to time, assistance if they find themselves injured or so unwell that they require rehabilitation.

The Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Legislation Amendment Bill is one of the suite of bills that I referred to in my opening remarks. It is another reason that explains why I am concerned about what is happening here tonight. That bill was introduced into the parliament in March last year. What we saw in that bill was absolutely outrageous—directly and indirectly risking the workplace health and safety of Australian workers. One of the things that was threatened in that was the right of Australian workers to have reasonable cover when they suffered the misfortune of a work related illness or injury. Labor completely opposed that bill. We continue to oppose that bill. There is great concern on this side of the chamber that, in that bill, the government has included provisions to hollow out state workers compensation schemes. Part of the process that the community should be aware of is that one of the plans, revealed in the process of looking at that legislation, intended to open up the Comcare scheme to private sector companies.

I am trying, with this abstract piece of legislation, to continue to remember, and to speak about, the people who will be affected if this legislation is wrong and if this legislation is hastily pushed through. We need to keep remembering that people are at the heart of what we do here in this place, and that the impact of this legislation on people is real. I am trying to use language that reminds us of that because we have heard from the other side technical language distancing people from the conversations of this place. Legislation has to be rich and in a particular form of words. But when those on the other side stand up and their language choices do not mention people, do not mention health consequences and do not mention safety in the workplace, and when they do not look like they are there to protect workers but to exploit them, and when their language choices are filled with words like contributions, funds, instalments, liabilities, assessments and remittances, when they are punctuated and littered with those sorts of words and there is no consideration of what those words might collectively mean in terms of impacting somebody's life, then there are more alarm bells ringing in my head. We are concerned that there are going to be large companies that will flee state schemes and that would compromise the capacity of those schemes to properly look after workers. We do not believe it would be in the interests of workers to have that happen. We do not think this legislation should proceed with such haste.

In addition to the bill that is before the house tonight, and the one that I have just mentioned, there is yet another Comcare bill—the third one in the sequence—that has just recently been introduced by the government. This is also one that should have us raising our concern and casting a close eye over what is being proposed by the government. That third bill makes cuts to lump sum compensation payable for permanent impairment for the vast majority of injured workers. Let me just say that again: it cuts lump sum compensation payments to permanently impaired people. It also attempts to remove the already modest pain and suffering payment that people so far can access. In her commentary in this place this evening, Senator Lines spoke eloquently about the reality of a period of work in which she was interacting with people who had found themselves on the wrong side of a workplace incident. These people suffered in the first instance a physical impairment that disconnected them from the experience of work, marginalised them from their community of work and impacted their health and wellbeing and family lives, and then the stress of dealing with the system that was so discriminatory towards them and so aggressive towards them meant that there was an amplification of their injury from a physical one into a mental health injury. We need to be careful about not allowing the construction of a system that will create that reality for people.

This third piece of Comcare legislation that the government is advancing does other things. It changes the eligibility requirements. That means that injured workers are locked out of the scheme altogether. It also attempts to reduce incapacity payments. It expands sanctions against workers, including the removal of medical support if a worker fails to attend a medical appointment. Where have I heard that before? These are some of the most excessive and punitive measures that we have seen this government try to implement since they came into the parliament with regard to people who find themselves unemployed.

We have seen this government almost selectively targeting those who are the most vulnerable, seeking them out, almost, when they are at their lowest point and then really kicking them while they are down. That is why this legislation is so important and deserves the proper scrutiny of a committee. There should be time given to this second part in the bill under the chamber's consideration this evening. We oppose all of the elements of that Comcare bill. We are very concerned about this Comcare bill. We oppose the elements of the first Comcare bill. There is a theme here. These guys are up to something no good. We are onto it. As the Labor Party, we will stand here and make sure that the proper scrutiny is applied, no matter how uncomfortable it is for those opposite.

What we have here is the Abbott government asking the parliament to make a determination on a matter which it has very recently introduced. It is a very substantial bill. It does, potentially, contain crucial information about future changes. Given the introduction of a third substantive Comcare bill, Labor really cannot believe that there was proper opportunity to fully investigate the current bill. These bills do not sit as separate entities. Once one gets through, there will be interactions with the other. Those interactions, those sophisticated and complex interactions, need to be given consideration as well.

I said earlier that the ACT government has not made a determination on the make-up of any new scheme. They only announced it in February. They have only just finished their consultation process. So, supporting the legislation that is before us is a foolish thing to do. It is foolish and it is dangerous, because the whole detailed process that should be part of any change is simply being overlooked. Obviously it is not reasonable or fair to suggest that people exit a particular type of arrangement that covers workers if they are injured at work and without being able with any certainty to outline what entitlements they may have in any subsequent scheme. It is simply not reasonable to ask us to support such a proposition. So inevitably we have considerable reservations about this bill.

That is not to say that we seek to usurp the rights of the ACT to make determinations about this. The ACT clearly should be making decisions for its own workforce in relation to workers compensation, including rehabilitation. But it is only reasonable that they make clear their intentions, in a detailed way, before this bill passes. And certainly a Senate inquiry would provide a space in which such reportage could happen and due consideration could be given.

I am advised that there has been considerable conversation with the ACT government. I am led to believe that the concerns that I am raising here in the chamber and that have been raised by my other colleagues who have participated in this debate have been raised with the ACT. We need them to outline their intentions. We need to explain any material changes that might be made to entitlements of those workers if they are injured. We need, in fact, a simple degree of fair scrutiny to be provided. I do not believe we have had sufficient time for that to happen at this stage, and it is certainly unduly hasty to be pushing for a resolution of this matter so promptly. The ACT government really does need to provide that information to this government and to the opposition as well so that we can ensure that there actually are no adverse consequences of this bill before the government exits the scheme.

One of the things I thought it would be worth putting on the record for people who may be listening and are interested in the process of scrutiny of these bills is that one of the very impressive things I found when I was a new senator was the introduction of a consideration of the human rights implications. Each bill has to be considered in terms of that human rights lens. Articles 6 and 7 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and articles 26 and 27 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities are mentioned in the explanatory memorandum. It reminds us, as I said at the beginning of my remarks this evening, that this is a complex piece of legislation. At its heart are outcomes for real people, and I urge a due degree— (Time expired)