Return to Work Scheme

The Hon. R.P. WORTLEY (14:37): My question is to the Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector. Will the minister inform the council about the third edition of the Return to Work Impairment Assessment Guidelines?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector, Special Minister of State) (14:37): I thank the honourable for his question and acknowledge his lifelong commitment to working people, his involvement in the trade union movement and his commitment in this area. As members would recall, there was significant public controversy when the former Liberal government announced the second edition of the Return to Work Impairment Assessment Guidelines.

The guidelines play a critical role in South Australia's workers compensation scheme and are applied by accredited medical experts to assess the degree of impairment resulting from workplace injuries. These assessments are then used to determine the worker's entitlement to lump sum compensation and ongoing income support.

When the second edition was announced, there was an outcry from doctors, lawyers and unions about changes being rushed through a phoney consultation process, which would see workers left worse off. I remember the very, very strong advocacy of our former colleague the Hon. Irene Pnevmatikos, who organised a number of meetings for us in opposition to talk to affected stakeholders.

I can remember a particular meeting that the now Premier and I—the then Leader of the Opposition, Peter Malinauskas—were invited to, where Irene started the meeting by telling everyone she was sure that the Labor leadership would do the right thing on this matter. That is Irene's style, and certainly we did do the right thing on this matter. We would have done it anyway, but we had little choice when Irene introduced the meeting to stakeholders in a manner which Irene was very, very well known for: her firm advocacy skills.

That ultimately resulted in this parliament repealing the second edition and amending the act to ensure that future changes would be subject to disallowance by this parliament. Notwithstanding these changes, it was widely agreed by stakeholders that the guidelines needed updating and a new edition was required.

The process this government has undertaken to develop that new, third edition could not be more different from what we observed under the last term of the Liberal government. This government firmly believes that stakeholders affected by our workers compensation scheme should be involved in decision-making about how the scheme operates. That is why the process for the new guidelines has been led from the start by stakeholder representatives.

In October 2022, a dedicated stakeholder representation consultation group, the SRCG, was established to oversee a review of the guidelines and lead consultation and the design of the third edition. The stakeholder representation consultation group included representatives from the medical profession; the legal profession, representing both workers and employers; trade unions; and ReturnToWorkSA. The consultation process has taken place over more than two years and involved 12 specialist medical subcommittees involving 55 doctors and medical professionals.

This was then followed by two rounds of public consultation involving over 500 stakeholders. At the conclusion of the consultation and the codesign process the stakeholder representation consultation group unanimously recommended a third edition, which has now been accepted and published in full by the government. The new edition of the guidelines will commence from 1 October 2025 and is expected to be cost neutral to the scheme.

The third edition has been developed with a strong focus on ensuring that workers receive fair, consistent and objective assessments. These changes support the goal that workers with similar impairments will receive the same assessment outcomes. Expert medical practitioners play a critical role in Australia's workers compensation scheme, and it is appropriate that these new guidelines reflect significant specialist medical input and ensure that assessments are conducted according to the best medical knowledge.

I wish to place on record my sincere thanks to the members of the stakeholder representation consultation group, who have devoted many, many hours to the development of the new guidelines over the past two years, as well as to the hundreds of stakeholders who have contributed to the consultation process and, of course, to our former colleague Irene Pnevmatikos for making Labor the very best it can be in relation to protecting workers.