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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2008-02-27 Daily Xml
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WORKCOVER CORPORATION

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH (Waite—Leader of the Opposition) (14:40): As a supplementary question, again to the Premier if he will take it, if neither the Premier nor the minister will accept responsibility on behalf of the government for WorkCover's financial position, who is at fault? Who did cause it?

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY (Port Adelaide—Deputy Premier, Treasurer, Minister for Industry and Trade, Minister for Federal/State Relations) (14:41): This parliament is at fault, and the reason for that is—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! I will vacate the chair if this continued interjecting goes on. The Deputy Premier.

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: As a government, we have done all we can—

Mr Pengilly interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! I have just called for order and already the member for Finniss, before the Deputy Premier has even started, is interjecting. The member for Finniss is warned, and he can consider it his last warning.

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: The government believes that, in terms of a board, it has put in place—and I have yet to see other than the Liberal opposition be critical of this board—the best business skill base we could.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: I'm not struggling at all.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: That board has put in place what it considers to be the best management available to manage the scheme, including an outstanding CEO in Julia Davison. Notwithstanding a high quality board, notwithstanding high quality management—

Mrs Redmond interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Heysen is warned.

Mr Venning interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Schubert is warned.

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: You have a bit more to be worried about, Ivan. I'd be very careful.

Ms Chapman: Is that a threat?

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: No, it's a fact.

The SPEAKER: Order! The Deputy Premier does not assist me by responding to interjections.

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: I give up. Honestly. I will not waste my time, Mr Speaker. Either they want to hear an answer or they do not. Sir, the best quality boards and the best quality management, with the legislative framework that oversees the provision of workers compensation in this state, is fundamentally flawed—

Mr Williams interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for MacKillop is warned.

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: —and, without substantial legislative reform, the unfunded liability will grow, not reduce. Without substantial legislative reform, the WorkCover scheme will continue to be the most ineffective, expensive and unfair to workers in Australia. That is the opinion of the board itself which handed down a series of recommendations, and that is the view of Alan Clayton and John Walsh, two of the nation's leading experts with respect to WorkCover. If members recall, the WorkCover Board said, 'For us to be able to manage this scheme to a position of being fully funded, this is what we believe the parliament needs to do to reform the legislation.' We put those recommendations by the board to a further independent review process, which has agreed with about 80 to 85 per cent of what the WorkCover Board said.

It is easy in opposition to try to make political points out of this, but at some point responsible politics requires an opposition to also appreciate that parliaments of the past and governments of the past of either persuasion perhaps should have acted sooner; and that goes back for a decade or more.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: It requires decisive action by this parliament.

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: You can laugh all you like, the member who would like to see common law return, but any objective analysis of this current situation can only concur that the legislation is fundamentally flawed; otherwise, you are saying that the likes of the senior business people who sit on WorkCover's board and Julia Davison and her management team are not up to the job. If that is what you are saying that is a fairly low blow.

The SPEAKER: Order! The Deputy Premier is debating the matter.

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