Return to Work Scheme

The Hon. C. BONAROS (14:44): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Attorney-General and industrial relations minister a question about the Return to Work scheme.

Leave granted.

The Hon. C. BONAROS: In this very same chamber last year, the very wise Hon. Irene Pnevmatikos introduced the Return to Work (Impairment Assessment Guidelines) Amendment Bill. In your support of the bill, you stood up in this place and said, and I quote:

Earlier this year, many members of the community were disturbed at the proposal of the government…to drastically change the Impairment Assessment Guidelines that affect some of the most vulnerable injured workers in South Australia…

The changes to the guidelines affect those who could be assessed with a 5 per cent whole body…impairment, a WPI threshold for workers to receive a lump sum compensation for many genuine injuries. It will make it impossible for many workers to receive lump sum compensation for common and debilitating injuries, including injuries to the knee, arms, hips, ankles and wrists.

You went on to say:

You need look no further than a recent [SAET] judgement highlighting how volatile this area of law can be, both for injured workers and medical practitioners…

After 18 months of listening to this government tell us daily about the importance of following expert health advice, we now find that parts of the government actively seek to undermine and try to change expert health advice.

My questions to the Attorney are:

1. Do you stand by the comments you made last year in support of the Labor private member's bill? If so, do they now fly in the face of your revised position and comments in here publicly today?

2. Will you consider the same bill favourably if and when it is reintroduced?

3. Does the government's revised position on Return to Work undermine the SAET decision you yourself referred to in this place last year?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Attorney-General, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector) (14:46): I thank the honourable member for her questions. I think I will answer the middle one first. Will we favourably consider legislation such as that put forward by the Hon. Irene Pnevmatikos? The answer is yes, we will favourably consider that. We are actively looking at how that bill will look in terms of doing that.

I will answer the first and third parts by saying we do stand by comments we have made in the past. The very big difference between what the former government did with the Impairment Assessment Guidelines was the changes to the Impairment Assessment Guidelines were not made because of any financial pressure on the scheme.

The difference with what's being faced by Return to Work now is the results of the decision in the Summerfield case are putting extraordinary financial pressure on the scheme: a $1 billion black hole in deficits and $100 million extra costs in the future. That's the very big difference between what the previous government did and what is being faced as a result of the Summerfield decision. As I said earlier in relation to an answer to a question, a scheme that is not financial and not sustainable is not good for anyone, including, and in particular, injured workers.