Mr DEAN ( Windermere ) - Mr President, I will be supporting the bill but I do have a couple of concerns and I will refer to those.
The first one is retrospectivity, and it has already been mentioned here today, but I believe that retrospectivity is bad law and in fact this is a position that I took in relation to the payroll tax bill that we discussed late last year. I believed it was bad there and, as most members would be aware, I moved an amendment on that occasion and I was successful in getting that amendment up. There are a number of reasons I am opposed to it. In the briefing on 16 June - yesterday - we were told that this clause has the ability to send some employers to the line. While we were not provided with further detail with regard to this statement, commonsense would tell us that it is a possibility. Retrospectivity will apply back to 1 July 2001. It is about a three-year period that we are looking at here, which is a lengthy period of time.
We need employers and without them many people out there will be receiving far less than the 70 per cent they had been in receipt of over the past three years. As of assent being given to this bill, if retrospectivity did not apply, their benefit would increase to 80 per cent. That is something that they can look forward to; if at the time this bill is given assent - it is ticked off - they would immediately go up - most of them, I would suggest - onto the 80 per cent, so they would pick up some increase in that regard.
In the meantime, these people and their families would have adjusted to live on the reduced finances coming into the house and we can assume that there would have been some hardship, initially, for these people. Very clearly, for a person working full time to all of a sudden find themselves injured and receiving workers compensation would have a huge impact. I can understand that and I think most of us can understand that.
A lot of people do not realise that this is not a government-funded position. Workers compensation is funded by the employer so they must find the money, and in this instance not only do they have to find the money for the injured employee but they also have to find the money, in most cases I would suggest, to employ a person to work in the place of that injured person. So it is a big impost on these employers.
The other point I make is - and it has been made already - that employers could not have envisaged this change in 2001, I would suggest, and therefore have had no real opportunity to put their plans in place to cover this increase that might be going to occur. It does place an unwanted impost on them and, as I said, could drive some to the wall.
The Leader might be able to provide me with the numbers of employees that are likely to be affected by, or be entitled to, retrospective payments if this bill goes through as it is.
Mr Aird - It's in the second reading.
Mr DEAN - If it is, I missed it and I apologise for that but I think it is important to have those figures. Compensation for workers injured at work is necessary and if we can differentiate for those who receive injuries where there is negligence or in fact there is contributing negligence on the part of the employer, I do not think there is any doubt in those cases. But one of the difficulties we have had, or indeed employers have had, is that there have been, and probably there still are, employees who have milked the system - that is, have/are enjoying their break from work and albeit recovered, have no desire to return to work whilst still receiving some of those funds and receiving 70 per cent. It is unfortunate that those people have made it difficult in many regards for those people who have been legitimately injured at work, either through negligence on their own part or the part of an employer or what have you. It has made it very difficult for a lot of those people in some cases to be able to support their positions. There is a lot of evidence that we see when we watch television. Cases are constantly displayed on television of workers rorting the system, working while they have bad backs. I think we have watched these sorts of programs where a number of these cases have been revealed and so on. So there is a lot of evidence to support, unfortunately, that there are people out there who are rorting the system who are making it very difficult.
I can remember one such case that occurred in my former employment where a person had been off on sick leave for a long period of time and in fact that member had virtually been lost in the system but was receiving benefits and that continued to be the case. There were always a lot of questions being asked but it continued to be the case until such time, Mr Deputy President -
Mr Parkinson - Did they find him?
Mr DEAN - Well, they did find him in actual fact but it was established that he had set up his own business in the city where he had been working as a police officer and was working under a business name. That very clearly does not give the right message out there in these situations and that employment was terminated very quickly of course.
Mr Parkinson - I hope he was arrested and charged as well.
Mr DEAN - I am not quite sure of that, but certainly he was terminated - well, that did not happen in fact because it could never be proven that the injury was not there. Very clearly it was not, but that was the situation. I just identify that case to highlight some of the problems that have occurred out there and are occurring.
We need to support both areas. We need to ensure that the employer is given as much support as they can be given in this situation and we also need on the other hand to ensure that the employee is also supported. Most employees have a partner, wife, husband and family to support as well, so we have to ensure that we have the mix right. I am quite convinced in this case that we do have it right. This bill presents quite a good case, I think, for both sides and that is the reason I support it.
But I do have concerns and I will be interested to hear what any other speakers might have to say in relation to retrospectivity, which does cause me some concern. As I said, it does impose a great impost on the employer and one that we are told is likely to cause some of these businesses to go to the wall. I think if that did occur that would be an extraordinary situation, particularly when we have the ability to ensure that that does not happen. I will be interested to hear what further speakers have to say in relation to that point.