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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-04-08 Daily Xml
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WORKCOVER LEVY

Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (15:24): My question is to the Premier. When will you deliver on your promise to cut WorkCover levy rates to 2.25 per cent?

The Hon. M.D. RANN (Ramsay—Premier, Minister for Economic Development, Minister for Social Inclusion, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Sustainability and Climate Change) (15:24): The actions that we have taken in respect to WorkCover, many of which have not yet come into force—they come into force, as I understand from the Minister for Industrial Relations, on 1 July—were necessary. Unlike members opposite who came out and said they would not need to take action, we did. We had the guts to take on our friends. We had the courage as well as the commitment.

I was condemned unanimously by my own party conference. I was attacked by close friends and colleagues in the Labor movement. But we had to make tough decisions because that is what we were elected to do, and that meant that we had to take decisions because the WorkCover system, as it was, was failing South Australians. It was delivering higher premiums to businesses and the worst return-to-work rate in the country. It also had an unfunded liability.

Various government bodies—as well as some people even in this place, I would imagine, who invest heavily in shares—have seen their portfolios hit by the global financial crisis. I would be very interested to do an analysis of some members' private trusts to see how they are going. So, no-one is surprised that corporations around the world are suffering a hit to the bottom line as a result to the hit on share prices internationally.

The actions that we took last year were necessary, and many of those actions come into force on 1 July, because we do not live in a parallel universe like members opposite, promising everything to everyone and, not only never having to deliver but never having to deliver the costings.

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