Return-to-Work Strategy

Mr BELL (Mount Gambier) (15:21): I rise today to talk about an issue that I genuinely feel will become more prominent over the coming weeks and months, that is, the government's return-to-work strategy. I am going to talk about a gentleman I have met in my electorate, Paul Douthie. Paul is 57 years of age and has been diagnosed with severe depression, anxiety and agoraphobia due to very serious workplace harassment and grievances.

Paul has not been able to work for the past 2¾ years, and four psychiatrists, two psychologists and two doctors have all put in writing that his condition is at the higher end of the scale, and that, in their expert opinion, they do not believe that he will be able to return to work in the foreseeable future. Unfortunately, in the last couple of weeks, Paul has received a letter from his rehabilitation employer demanding that he take up the offer of two years' remuneration, otherwise he will be taken off the scheme.

The stress that this has caused is quite considerable. I needed to meet Paul at his house due to the fact that he does not venture outside and has not been able to drive for nearly three years. There are a couple of issues around this which concern me and which I just want to bring to the government's attention. This attitude of, 'You need to take this redundancy and get of the scheme, otherwise you will be kicked off in two years' time,' has caused a great deal of stress for Paul. He has met with his union official, and they have provided some legal assistance for Paul. The situation is that they are all saying that it is virtually impossible to prove a psychiatric injury to the point of 30 per cent.

As people may or may not know, when you cut off an arm it is a permanent injury. If you are missing enough of your body, whether it is an eye, an arm, etc., that injury will not correct itself—you will not grow another eye or another arm—and the 30 per cent can be quantifiable: you can tell how much impairment is there. The issue, under law, is that you cannot presume that a psychological injury will not get better. So at some point you may have a psychological or psychiatric injury which is greater than 30 per cent, which makes you incapacitated for work, but it cannot be defined as a permanent injury. Hence, psychological or psychiatric injuries or illnesses will not be defined under the Return to Work strategy as permanent.

So I have this gentleman in my electorate who is under enormous duress; he has been given four weeks to accept the offer or it gets taken off the table. His lawyers and union officials say that there is no other way out and he will need to take this offer, yet none of his medication is included in the offer. He is very fearful—as is his wife—as to what this will mean in 24 months' time; in two years' time how is he going to be able to function? As I said, he is 57.

Having met him I really feel for his situation, and I think the government needs to start looking at these types of injuries. I need to be on the record that I supported the return-to-work strategy; I think it did need to be tightened up in many, many ways, but also with the presumption that these anomalies, these things that I probably had not thought about, also need to be addressed so that we are not leaving vulnerable members of our community worse off. As he said, he is behind in his mortgage, his wife works only part time, and he has no idea where this will end for him.