Getting injured on the job is every worker's nightmare. There are systems in place to prevent it from happening. We have occupational health and safety standards, workplace policies and employee training to avoid injuries wherever possible.
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But sometimes workers are injured. No system is perfect.
When a worker is injured, employers have workers compensation insurance which should ensure that the injured worker gets the care they need so that they can get healthy and back to work.
This issue might seem remote, but it could happen to any one of us.
In the 12 months up until March 2020, 98,804 claims were reported to the State Insurance Regulatory Authority (SIRA), and 78,979 workers were receiving weekly payments. Most injured workers take little or no time off work, and more than 80 per cent return to and recover at work within the first 13 weeks.
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Some injured workers need much more long term care and support.
A recent 4 Corners report highlighted the very real experiences of several people who were injured at work and were put through the wringer by their employer's workers compensation insurers. The pain from their workplace injuries was exacerbated by the painful process enforced on them by the insurer. Unfortunately, workers compensation is often a minefield for injured workers and the process of dealing with insurers can often add insult to injury. Ask anyone who has been through the workers compensation process, and you're likely to hear some horror stories.
As the Member for Charlestown, I have helped a number of my constituents navigate this complex process. One constituent provided me with an archive box full of correspondence documenting his struggle with his insurer. Another constituent had his medical support cut off without warning when his insurer miscalculated his entitlements. This meant that, even though he met the definition of a worker with highest needs and was entitled to several more years of coverage, he was on his own.
The majority of working people in NSW are covered by the workers compensation insurer known as "icare". Icare is a NSW government agency and provides workers compensation insurance to 326,000 public and private sector employers and 3.6 million workers. It was the brainchild of NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet when he was still Finance Minister. When it was introduced in 2015, icare was meant to streamline the workers compensation process for employers and for injured workers. That didn't happen. It seems like every day we learn something new about the government's mismanagement of icare.
Icare has been plagued with accusations of mismanagement, poor governance and underpayment, with as many as 50,000 injured workers underpaid by up to $80 million. This is one of the largest wage theft scandals in Australian history, and the largest involving an Australian government.
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While injured workers have been going without, the number of icare executives on salaries of more than $300,000 has gone from two to 45. All this while the insurer was hemorrhaging money, senior executives and board members had undeclared conflicts of interest and were handing out contracts without a proper tender process. There have been warnings, even from Treasury, that icare was heading for a financial disaster for months.
When the Treasurer was confronted about these issues in Parliament, he said that the icare board was doing a good job. He kept that up until CEO John Nagle resigned because of conflict of interest issues.
What's more, two of the Treasurer's ministerial staff were working in his office on secondment from icare. One of them had never spent a day at the icare office. The government has announced an audit of the Treasurer's office which will be headed up by Treasury Secretary Michael Pratt-who used to be the Deputy Chair of icare.
In the meantime, SIRA has referred some of these issues to ICAC. The Opposition is calling for a full explanation.
Premier Gladys Berejiklian has refused to recall the whole Parliament to Sydney before September 15 to avoid scrutiny.
The government is hoping this will all blow over.
Sadly, it won't blow over for the tens of thousands of injured workers who have been underpaid by icare. They and their families have been let down by a system which is meant to help them during a difficult time.
Any one of us could get injured on the job. We need to be able to trust that if we are, our cases will be considered carefully and properly handled by insurers. This isn't about politics. This is about fairness.
