2 days ago
NSW workers' compensation reforms delayed as bill referred for second inquiry
The NSW Coalition has sided with unions to delay the Labor government's workers' compensation reforms over a measure that would have made it harder to claim long-term compensation for psychological injuries.
The Opposition and the Greens teamed up in the state's upper house on Thursday to refer the Minns government's bill to a second parliamentary inquiry.
The Public Accountability and Works Committee will now be required to table a report on the bill at a later date.
During the debate in the upper house, Treasurer Daniel Mookhey argued that the "unnecessary" delay would cost the private sector at least $5 million a day.
One measure of the bill, which proved to be the sticking point for the Coalition, was the proposal to double the Whole Person Impairment (WPI) threshold from 15 to 31 per cent.
This would have made it significantly harder for workers to claim ongoing support for a psychological injury beyond two-and-a-half years.
The unions opposed the proposition and found themselves an unlikely ally in the NSW Liberal Party leader Mark Speakman, who resisted calls from major business lobby groups to urgently pass the bill.
Mr Speakman said the Coalition would have supported the bill if several proposed amendments were adopted, including maintaining the threshold at 15 per cent.
"We think that is a drastic measure that will punish the most severely affected workers, so we don't want to see that threshold raised," he told ABC Radio Sydney.
"We want to see premiums driven down, they are becoming unaffordable for small business, but we think there are fairer ways of doing it."
According to the State Insurance Regulatory Authority, psychological injury claims increased by 64 per cent over four years, from 5,616 in 2019-20 to 9,195 in 2023-24.
Mr Mookhey claimed that without the reforms, premiums paid by businesses would increase by 36 per cent over three years to 2028, costing businesses more than $1 billion a year.
"The opportunity we will miss is to fundamentally begin repairing a system everyone acknowledges is broken," Mr Mookhey said during the debate in the upper house.
"For the 340,000 businesses that pay into this scheme, the opportunity we will miss … is to give them certainty about what's going to happen to their most significant costs and significant causes of anxiety."
During the debate, Shadow Treasurer Damien Tudehope acknowledged that "the treasurer and I seemed to have swapped friends".
Earlier on Thursday, Premier Chris Minns said during Question Time that the Coalition was being "misled" about the possible impact of the measure.
"The truth is the Coalition's amendments would gut the bill," Mr Minns said.
The bill had cleared the lower house with some minor amendments on Monday night.
Last month, the government softened parts of the bill after fierce backlash from unions and concerns raised by medical professionals and lawyers during an inquiry.
