Ivan Dean, Speeches Index

Tuesday 17 November 2009

WORKERS REHABILITATION AND COMPENSATION AMENDMENT BILL 2009

Mr DEAN ( Windermere ) - Madam President, I want to make a short contribution. I certainly support the bill moving forward.

There are just one or two statements I want to make. It would seem from the briefings that we had today that there is consensus and support for the bill. I think the employers, if I am right, had two issues: one was the step-down changes and the other was in relation to the reporting period of 48 hours. That is an amendment that will be made and I understand it is being accepted by the Government. It only leaves one issue over which there is any real concern currently felt by anybody involved with this bill. I think that the step down does provide greater security for an employee who is injured in the work force and I would have some difficulty in not accepting that.

It seems that we continue to play catch-up in the State and we did have an opportunity to address the situation of the death benefit which we were told today this bill increases from $200 000 to $250 000. But since this bill has been in the making, a number of other States have increased their death benefit pay-out amount. Once again, we will be close to the bottom of the ladder with the death benefit pay-out in this State. On average it will be near the $400 000 mark, but substantially higher than in this State and I wonder why we did not consider that more and put ourselves in the average, at least, and we could have been there for a number of years, but now we will settle fairly low on the ladder, as it were. Is that fair to an employee who could lose their life in their work force? I do not think it is and I wonder why we did not address that.

The only other issues I wanted to refer to, relate to police and I did have a lengthy discussion with the President of the Police Association of Tasmania, Mr Wierenga. Whilst I was in the police service, I was the union rep for the officers' branch for about 10 years, so I have some background in union issues. I was always of the view that police should not be in this legislation. The police should have separate legislation. They should be isolated because of the nature and the type of duty that they are required to do.

Police put their lives on the line daily and there are occasions when their life can be on the line two or three times in one day. It is not unusual for that to occur when police go to violent situations where they are confronted with violence, not knowing what weapons are going to be used in their day-to-day duties. I believe that there is a strong case for police to sit alone.

If you look at police you can compare them with other organisations. I do not think anybody could argue that other people would suffer and have the same and similar level of risk that a police officer would have.

I could give myself as an example of the injuries and problems that police confront. During about a two-year period of service I suffered a number of fairly major injuries. On one occasion I was jumped on and stomped on by people jumping out of a tree on top of me and I spent a number of days in hospital. They caught the two offenders, which was wonderful -

Mr Wilkinson - Took them back to the zoo?

Mr DEAN - They did a fair amount of time.

Mr Wing - What were you doing under the tree?

Mr DEAN - I pulled up a vehicle on my own and on those occasions you policed on your own. I pulled this car up, not knowing it was a stolen car at the time, because radios did not work all that well back in the 1970s -

Mr Wilkinson - Did you have your mobile?

Mr DEAN - No, mobiles were not even thought of. So I suffered that injury. Not long after that I was attacked by a youth with a broken bottle. That caused me some problems. It was not long after that I was once again assaulted by a villain at Glenorchy who decided that he wanted my car more than I wanted it, the police car that is, and I was assaulted once again, quite badly and suffered quite a few injuries, and people know the situation at Scottsdale where I was shot at by a couple of criminals and I had a bit of a tough time -

Mrs Rattray-Wagner - Not by me, Madam President.

Mr DEAN - Let me identify the risks that police face in their job daily. I believe there is a good case but what Randolph Wierenga said was this bill strengthens the legislation that we currently have in place. He said, we would like you to support it.

Mr Wilkinson - He wants you back at the police force; that's obvious.

Mr DEAN - We can address the other issues as time moves on. His position is one of supporting this bill. When you look at a step-down position for police, Les Cooper is a good example. He was the police officer who was shot twice at Kempton. When he pulled up a vehicle -

Mr Wilkinson - Pontville, wasn't it.

Mr Hall - I thought it was Bagdad.

Mr DEAN - I think it was Kempton but it does not matter. He was shot at. He was in a serious state for a long time and suffered massive injuries emotionally, physically and you could say, Madam President, that it has ruined his life and that of his family, who have suffered enormously as a result. He would have lost salary after a fairly short period of time under the old legislation. What a tragedy for a man to go through what he went through and then have to suffer, after a period of time, a loss in salary. Think about it and you can understand why police feel they should be dealt with differently from probably other professions. In this instance there was a good side, Madam President, because I understand that the Commissioner of Police of the day was able to reach an agreement where Les Cooper did not lose salary for a much longer period of time. So that was a great result.

I support this legislation because it strengthens the current position that we have.

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