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Legislative Council - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
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WORKERS REHABILITATION AND COMPENSATION (SCHEME REVIEW) AMENDMENT BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 7 May 2008. Page 2813.)

The Hon. M. PARNELL (11:05): The past two weeks of sitting and the past three days in particular have left me absolutely gobsmacked about how the parliament goes about its business. We have seen remarkable attacks on the crossbench members, on the Liberals and, in fact, on the very institution of the Legislative Council from the Treasurer, the Attorney-General and others. The message they have sought to portray to the community is that we are not serious about dealing with government business. In this place we all know the Notice Paper and the order in which matters are listed, and we know what the government tells us are its priorities.

In the past sitting period of two weeks we knew, from letters from the Leader of the Government and from the daily Notice Paper, that the government's No. 1 priority was the so-called bikies bill. I and I know a lot of other members gave some honour to the request that we prioritise that legislation. I abandoned a great deal of other things that I thought were more important so that we could give proper attention to that bill, yet we had the circus in this place, having been told it was a priority, that day after day we would come into this place—

The Hon. P. Holloway: I will circulate to the media letters telling them exactly what the priorities were.

The Hon. M. PARNELL: The minister says he will circulate his letter. Tell me who you will circulate your letter to, minister, and I will circulate two letters that have the bikies bill as the No. 1 priority for two sitting weeks. Every day we came into this parliament ready to debate the bikies bill, and we have moved heaven and earth over the past couple of weeks to make sure that that legislation was given the scrutiny it deserves. I make no apology for the fact that I moved amendments to this legislation and no apology for the fact that I tried to fix it up. I did not get the agreement of members, but we did discover some loopholes and some errors of drafting, and they were dealt with in committee.

The PRESIDENT: Order! I remind the honourable member that the council finished dealing with that bill last night. This is the workers compensation bill.

The Hon. M. PARNELL: Thank you, Mr President; and that is where I need to go now. We have now been accused of delaying the workers compensation bill because of the time we spent doing what the government had said was its priority, namely, the bikies bill. I think we have also shown greater tolerance in the suspension of our normal program, our standing orders, in order to get to this debate.

But still we find, on the issue of WorkCover, that we are under attack from the government. As we were sitting here yesterday, just about to start question time, the Adelaide Now website loaded up an article, some of which was included in this morning's Advertiser. At 20 minutes past two yesterday, he Adelaide Now website posted an article under the heading 'Furious Foley unloads on upper house over WorkCover bill delay.'

What a nerve for the Treasurer to accuse us of delaying the WorkCover bill because we were giving scrutiny to that piece of legislation the government had told us for two sitting weeks was its No. 1 priority, yet it adjourned it time and again. We got on to it yesterday, and now we are getting on to the WorkCover bill. WorkCover is still in the news this morning, as media commentators are questioning the behaviour and the ethics of government ministers, including the Treasurer, especially in relation to his unwelcome interruption to our work yesterday. The Adelaide Now article states:

Treasurer Kevin Foley has launched a stunning broadside at the state's upper house, labelling it irrelevant, reckless and destructive over the WorkCover impasse. In a powerful attack this morning, Mr Foley indicated the government would move to suspend private members time to bring forward the debate on WorkCover, saying the legislation had to be passed by Monday, even if it meant sitting 24/7.

I would like to know why the government regards it as appropriate for me to find out in an online news service that the standing orders of this council are proposed to be suspended so that we can get on to the WorkCover debate. No courtesy of talking to me as a member of this place. No-one from the government came to me and said, 'We don't want you to debate your private members business; we want to get on to WorkCover.'

I would have appreciated the courtesy of the government coming to me and saying that that is what its intention was. Instead, we read about it in online newspapers, and we find out about it when it actually happens and we are forced to make a decision about whether a longstanding tradition of this council that private members business take priority on a Wednesday is going to be thrown out.

This morning, again, with commentators on WorkCover in the media, we find the Attorney-General talking about this move to try to suspend private members business, and he conveniently forgot that we did, in fact, suspend it to prioritise some government business yesterday, and we got on to private members business later.

But that was not good enough. The Attorney-General then criticised and complained about some of the issues we were discussing. He mentioned individual members and items they had put on the Notice Paper. One that he mentioned as being on our Notice Paper were moves to give ourselves more perks, to give ourselves more pay. I do not know where that is on the Notice Paper, unless he was talking about my intention to provide members of parliament and public servants with an option to invest their superannuation ethically. Maybe that is what the Attorney-General thinks is a perk.

Mr Foley is also reported as urging all businesses to boycott the Liberal's tax summit on Monday, saying that the party had let them down by not focusing on the legislation. So, that has us questioning whether this WorkCover legislation is so desperately urgent in its own right—that is, the desire to cut injured workers' entitlements as quickly possible—or whether this is really about political point scoring so that the business leaders the Leader of the Opposition has invited to talk about tax—a very important topic—are discouraged from attending. The Treasurer is quoted as saying:

There is a quaint old tradition in the upper house of this state that they spend a few hours on a Wednesday pontificating and rabbiting on about private members issues that have little relevance to the good of the state, and we want that process scrapped this afternoon.

What a remarkable statement for the Treasurer to make.

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. M. PARNELL: As my honourable colleague says, he wants the upper house scrapped, not just our quaint tradition of discussing things in the afternoon. What we have to remember is that two-thirds of South Australians did not vote for the Labor Party in this chamber. People exercised their democratic right to determine how they wanted their legislature constructed, and they decided, wisely, that they wanted a mix of major parties, minor parties, and Independents in this chamber—and that is what we have.

When people elect us to parliament, they expect that we will bring to the parliament issues of importance to them—and that is what we do on a Wednesday. Yes, we will discuss WorkCover; we will discuss government legislation; we will make sure that it does not fall off the agenda and that it is treated seriously. It will either be supported or it will be opposed on its merits—that is where WorkCover fits into this—but to suggest that elected members of the state parliament have no right to bring to this place issues of importance to our communities is an outrageous slight on democracy in this state. In relation to WorkCover, the Treasurer goes on to say:

I say this to business, a very deliberate message to business, there should be a mass boycott...of the Liberal's Tax Summit on Monday in this parliament if the Liberals have not passed [the bill] to fix WorkCover.

That raises the question of the urgency of dealing with this bill, given that the unfunded liability has taken some six or eight years to eventuate and will take equally long to go down. However, all of a sudden, because the Liberals are having a tax summit on Monday, the priority is for the Legislative Council to suspend all its other business and to get on with debating it. Well, I am debating it now, and I am keen to get on to resolve these WorkCover issues. The Adelaide Now article on WorkCover stated:

The opposition and minor parties yesterday blocked moves by the government to bring forward the WorkCover debate, instead choosing to debate the controversial anti-biking legislation.

We have had this outrageous, almost comical situation where the Leader of the Government in this place is saying that the priority for the state of South Australia is to cut the rights of injured workers, and we have had the Attorney-General—

The Hon. P. Holloway: I don't think I said that, actually.

The Hon. M. PARNELL: No; the minister did not say it in those terms, but that is the effect of this legislation: cutting the rights of injured workers. We have had the Attorney-General—especially in light of the terrible incident in Gouger Street on the weekend—saying, 'No; passing the bikies bill is the No. 1 priority.' When journalists have questioned, 'Which is it?' the response came back, 'Well, it's both.' I think the Legislative Council has behaved admirably in moving our normal practices, shuffling and changing them to accommodate both pieces of legislation. The Adelaide Now article on WorkCover goes on to state:

The move came after senior government MPs, including Attorney-General Michael Atkinson, blamed the opposition and minor parties for deliberately holding up the bikies bill.

That is an outrageous untruth, which everyone in this place knows to be so. We did not hold it up.

Mr Foley said that the behaviour of the members in the upper house recently had proven why the council was not needed. As tempting as it is to go into a debate now on why the upper house is important, I will not do that, because the focus is on WorkCover. The only thing I want to say is that, if we did not have an upper house, if we were like Queensland with a unicameral parliament, these changes to the WorkCover laws, these changes that cut the entitlements of vulnerable people in the community who need our support and help, would already be law. That is the value of the upper house. We will find errors and mistakes in this legislation on top of the general unfairness of the legislation, just as we found mistakes when we went through the bikies bill yesterday.

Mr Foley said that the behaviour of the members of the upper house recently had proven why the council was not needed and that Premier Mike Rann is proposing a referendum at the next state election aimed at getting reforms. The direct quote from Mr Foley is as follows:

This is the most politically reckless and destructive period that I have witnessed in parliament in some 16 years.

I accept that Mr Foley has been longer in this place, but I find it remarkable that he can point to the quality of debate that we have in this place and say that it is reckless or destructive. When we get into the committee stage on WorkCover I am going to move amendments (which I am hoping will be with members this afternoon) that will test this legislation clause by clause and section by section. The Treasurer goes on to state about the WorkCover Legislation:

This is a piece of law that passed the lower house in a little over a week and is now log-jammed in one of the most irrelevant legislative houses in the nation. If you ever have witnessed why we shouldn't have upper house in this state, this is it.

The message that comes from that is not just a message about the upper house: it is a message to the people of South Australia about the commitment of the Treasurer to democracy; the commitment of the Treasurer to debate. Yesterday, I flippantly suggested that perhaps we do not need to debate WorkCover or bikies; perhaps we should just sit in our rooms in front of computer screens with a vote yes or vote no button, and we can do away with debate. The Hon. Bernard Finnigan expressed some support for that notion. I am very pleased that he is now listening to this debate on WorkCover, and I eagerly await his contribution. Perhaps when we come back in June we will hear the honourable member's views.

The opposition leader, Martin Hamilton-Smith, blamed the government for the delays in the WorkCover bill. The Leader of the Opposition said, 'What a silly, stupid remark from the Treasurer.' I echo the words of the Leader of the Opposition. I do not think the people of South Australia are fooled about WorkCover; I do not think they are fooled about bikies. What they know is that WorkCover is causing pain to Labor; that the longer the pain goes on, the worse it is for Labor; and that, therefore, Labor's agenda is to get this through in whatever way it can using whatever bullying it needs—be it the Treasurer coming into our chamber and telling us what he thinks or whether it is the Attorney-General or the Treasurer talking on the airwaves. They are the tactics they are going to use. The Adelaide Now article goes on to quote the Leader of the Opposition as saying:

A year ago Mr Rann and Mr Foley knew action needs to be taken on WorkCover. It had recommendations from the board saying that legislation was urgently needed, but they delayed. My expectation is that the WorkCover legislation will be passed before the end of the financial year. If it is not done this week, it will be certainly done in the next week of sitting, which is June.

We are going to decide this afternoon what progress we have made. However, I think the Leader of the Opposition may be right. I know he is right in that we will still be discussing this in June, because this is such important legislation which needs the scrutiny of the Legislative Council and which needs us to go through the amendments that it will take that long. I could not commence my remarks without putting on record the outrageous attacks on the upper house in relation to this bill.

The legislation itself, as I have said, is complicated and, therefore, it needs a great deal of scrutiny. I make no apology about taking my time in exploring the detail of this legislation. What has amazed me over the past two months is the number of people who have contacted me in relation to WorkCover. Injured workers email me, ring my office and write to me, saying, 'Mr Parnell, doesn't the government realise that this legislation is about real people and real people's lives?' It is not about unfunded liabilities: it is about the living standards and the justice we give to injured workers as a consequence of their injury at work.

All these people who have contacted me say, 'Can you tell the parliament what the impact of these WorkCover changes will be?' Some of them have had very poor experiences with the current system, and their relevance to this debate is that, with many of these changes, we can multiply those negative experiences many times over.

WorkCover in South Australia has a very long history, and it has always been controversial when it has been debated. When the Treasurer complains that the lower house got through the bill in a week and that that therefore somehow reflects on the upper house, he conveniently ignores the fact that the government, with knowledge of the numbers and the balance of responsibilities in this place, very often leaves contentious issues to the scrutiny of the upper house. It knows that in the lower house it has the numbers on WorkCover and that it does not need to have a thorough debate there, because the real action and the real scrutiny will be in the Legislative Council.

As I proceed through this legislation, I am still finding flaws. In fact, in some ways it is like a good movie: the more often you look at it, the more new things you find. We found mistakes in the bikie bill and we have found many mistakes in the WorkCover bill. That is why it has taken much of my time recently to go through this legislation to prepare amendments. People need only look at the range of the issues that I would normally be dealing with. I have to say that I have dropped a lot of those and chosen not to engage in many of the important issues facing the state because I have made some commitment to advancing the legislative agenda, including WorkCover.

That is why I take very personally the attacks which are untrue and which are, in fact, an insult to my family who do not see me very often these days because I am working on this legislation. They do not see me because we were still sitting at a quarter to one this morning. We are working hard, and we will continue to work hard on WorkCover. I take the minister at his word when he said in this place a while ago that they need this legislation through by the end of June. Let us work within the processes of this parliament to see whether we can give this bill the scrutiny it deserves and see what the outcome will be by the end of June.

It is also important for people to realise that the way parliament works is that all of us work every day; we do not work just on the days that parliament sits. So that we can balance our responsibilities to our electorate (and in our case the whole state comprises our electorate and our constituents) and the parliamentary agenda, as well as the government's parliamentary agenda, which includes WorkCover, they publish a sitting schedule at the start of each year, and we plan our lives around that schedule.

In the more than two years I have been here, I have never missed a day in parliament, and I have never missed a division. I have always been here. Other members have taken the government at face value with its published legislative program, and they have planned other work around it. So, we will work within the rules that were agreed collectively at the start of the year in terms of our sitting schedule—and I think that that is the way to go.

I am not interested in sitting on Mother's Day. I think that is an outrageous insult, not just to the mothers of South Australia but to the parliament and to those whose support us, including the Hansard staff, many of whom are no doubt mothers, and the people in the library. What an outrageous suggestion—that, because the government has got itself into a spot, it is embarrassed over WorkCover and therefore we should sit on Mother's Day. I just find that offensive in the extreme.

Another point I think worth making is that the opposition has decided, for its own reasons, that it will allow this legislation to become the government's legacy, and it has chosen not to engage in amendments. In fact, despite its criticisms of the legislation (and it has pointed out things that are wrong with it, as I will), it has not engaged in what would be the normal role of an opposition, namely, to scrutinise proposed amendments and—

The Hon. A. Bressington: Loyally oppose.

The Hon. M. PARNELL: As the Hon. Ann Bressington says, to loyally oppose. I do not pretend to tell my colleagues everything the word 'opposition' means, but it sometimes means opposing things that deserve to be opposed, and it also means scrutiny. That is one thing that my crossbench colleagues and I share in common with the Liberal Party: we are part of the opposition in that role of scrutinising legislation.

Of course, the problem here is that, when Her Majesty's loyal opposition chooses not to engage in that part of the role (that is, the scrutiny of legislation), it is left to the crossbench. The fact that six members of the upper house on the cross benches have said that they are not happy with this legislation and that they want to give it the scrutiny it deserves effectively puts us in the position of the opposition in relation to this legislation.

It is often pointed out that, if we dare to complain about the workload in terms of having to do the job of the opposition, we are told that we get extra staff to do it. I know from conversations with other crossbench members that our staff have dropped many other projects so that we can concentrate on doing the right thing in scrutinising this WorkCover legislation. In fact, one member of my staff at least prematurely dragged himself out of his sick bed so we could work on this legislation, so I do not accept that we are unduly delaying it.

What I will say is that this debate will be a long debate, but it need not be that long. There are some alternatives to having a lengthy debate in the Legislative Council. One of those alternatives (and it is an alternative that I have been suggesting for the past couple of months) is that we use the vehicle of parliament to best effect by having a committee look at this legislation. It could be either a select committee or we could use one of the standing committees. We already have a standing committee looking at WorkCover.

The Statutory Authorities Review Committee has been looking at WorkCover, and it seems to me that committees are an under-used tool in this parliament and that we should refer to them contentious legislation, because they have an incredible advantage over us debating as either a full Legislative Council or as a committee of the whole. The advantage is that they can call for witnesses. They can actually scrutinise and interrogate the people who are either responsible for the system or the subjects of the system (the recipients of services provided by the system).

I think that, given the history of WorkCover and given the huge variety of opinions over what the problem is and how best to fix it, proper scrutiny by a parliamentary committee would be the best way of our dealing with it. I do not sit on that committee, so there is no personal agenda in my saying that, but those honourable members who are on the committee would have the ability to ask questions of WorkCover representatives, SafeWork SA people, the claims managers, the lawyers who work in this field and, most importantly, the injured workers who are (depending how you look at it) the victims of the system or the recipients of services provided by the system. 'Clients' or 'users' is the jargon we often use. We could get those people into a parliamentary committee and ask them about their experiences, the things that worked and the things that did not work. Yet, I do not find any support in the Legislative Council for us to go down that path, and I think that is a real shame. I will be revisiting this issue when we get to the end of the second reading.

My point is that, had I had indications from the opposition that it would support such a move, the need for us to take the time of the Legislative Council to go through every aspect of this bill would, to a certain extent, be negated. But it looks like we will not be going down that path, so I owe it to my constituents (the people of South Australia) to do that job in the Legislative Council in full session and in the committee of the whole when we get to that stage.

I will also say at the outset that I do not pretend for one minute that the current system is perfect and does not need any change. I certainly believe it does not need the changes the government is proposing, but WorkCover does need to be reformed. We need to change the way the system operates. We need changes that improve the scheme's funding position, and we need changes that ensure we deliver genuine and meaningful improvements to injured workers in the areas of rehabilitation and their ability to return to work. That is one of the reasons—in fact, one of the main reasons—why I oppose this disgraceful bill unless it is adequately amended. Premier Rann's disgraceful attack on some of the most vulnerable people in South Australia cannot go unanswered.

I think we should make no mistake about what we are talking about here. I will call it the government's legislation but the Premier has very personally attached himself to it, so we can say, I think, that this is Premier Rann's legislation. It does absolutely nothing of substance to help injured workers get back to work. So, in the absence of alternative mechanisms and in the absence of any indication that the government is listening to injured workers, I will be referring to their experiences in my contribution because it provides us with very valuable lessons as to how the system can be improved.

Two of the groups that have corresponded with me a great deal are the unions and members of the legal profession who represent injured workers in workers compensation cases. They have given me a mountain of material that they have asked me to refer to. I will not go through everything that everyone has written to me about workers compensation. I will only skim the surface, but it will still take some time. What I think we need to do at the outset is set some of the context for this legislation in terms of the tabling of the legislation on 28 February and its overall impact on injured workers, and then I want to go, area by area, through some of the different aspects of it, whether it be the proposal to cut entitlements after certain periods of time, the plan to introduce medical panels (which is a vexed and controversial area), or the many others, and we will get to those in due course.

My starting point is that the legislation is inherently flawed and needs to be reformed. The consequences of this legislation are that many injured workers will no longer be able to support their families. I think it is inevitable that, if these changes come in, many mortgages will be foreclosed. We have seen the mess they got themselves into in the United States with the so-called 'subprime mortgage crisis'. South Australia may be set to have a WorkCover driven mortgage crisis of its own, because when you cut the wages of injured workers you cut not only their ability to put food on their tables but also their ability to put a roof over their head. The intention, it seems to me, is that the Labor Party wants to force injured workers onto minimum assistance from social security in the shortest possible time.

The Hon. P. Holloway: We want them back to work; that is what we want.

The Hon. M. PARNELL: The minister says he would like them back at work, and I will have some things to say about the length of the tail, because that is one area about which all the commentators agree—whether it is the WorkCover board, the lawyers who represent them or the unions, the length of the tail is a problem. Getting people back to work is a priority. However, the question before the Legislative Council in terms of this legislation is whether this is the mechanism to do it. I say that it is not. Both the Clayton report (and other members have referred to that) and this bill follow key provisions of the Victorian workers compensation legislation, and the irony has not been lost on unions and injured workers.

The irony is that a state Labor government has adopted the provisions of legislation which was originally enacted by Jeff Kennett in Victoria and which, overall, provide a basis for the most unfair scheme for injured workers in Australia. I will have to come back to that theme that it will become the most unfair scheme for injured workers in Australia, because the rhetoric from government is that we are going to have the fairest scheme. I say that is wrong, and I will show that that is wrong by looking at some of the schemes interstate and how they operate, and comparing them to the scheme in South Australia. It is very easy to tell people that you have the fairest scheme but, unless there is a mechanism for challenging that, people might just accept it and be misled.

Now, that is where the Legislative Council comes in. We do not accept simple throw-away lines such as, 'We've got the fairest scheme', just as we did not accept comments such as, 'You are delaying government legislation.' Once you put the facts on the table people can see that it is untrue and they can then form their view as to where the real integrity lies in politics in South Australia. A significant feature of the Victorian legislation, and therefore this proposed legislation, is the adoption of arbitrary cut-off periods—or threshold impairment levels—preventing access to entitlements.

Last week when this bill was debated a number of members pointed out the fact that we were debating the legislation on May Day. I am pleased also to be discussing this legislation close to May Day—not actually on the day but close to the day. I am very glad that I am discussing it after May Day because May Day and that May Day week was a very important opportunity for me to spend a lot of time with workers, their representatives in the unions and with injured workers in particular. The stories they have told me at the different May Day gatherings and associated events deserve to be heard in this place, and so I will go through some of those briefly.

People have said before, so I will not go into it in any detail, that the symbolism of May Day when we are talking about workers' rights and something like WorkCover is that it is a more than 100 year old institution. It is normally an opportunity for people to reflect on the achievements of the labour movement in its broadest sense, including some of its political achievements. In fact, in Australia the celebration goes back over 100 years. In Brisbane in 1890 the Brisbane Workers' Editorial (a journal of the day) said:

May Day, this is our May Day, the bygone jubilation of our fathers for the reconquering of by the bright sunshine of the bitter northern winter, the newborn celebration of the passing of the workers' winter of discontent.

The workers' winter of discontent in South Australia is very much the workers' autumn of discontent in the year 2008. I was proposing to go into a little more of the history of May Day around the world, but I will not put the Legislative Council through that. Some other members mentioned the martyrs in Chicago executed on trumped-up charges in relation to some very violent episodes in that place. In South Australia, May Day has been a tradition of celebrating achievements. When one looks at May Day South Australia 2008, what does one see as the focus? Is it a celebration of the fact that the Howard government and its WorkChoices regime was thrown out?

Yes, to a very moderate extent, but very muted. The overall focus of May Day 2008 was WorkCover and the cuts to the entitlements of injured workers. In South Australia a number of prominent people, who are very connected to the labour movement and to the Labor Party, have been involved in May Day. One such person—and I will just briefly refer to some of his story—was Brian Mowbray. Brian was a worker in the Islington rail workshops for many years in South Australia, and an active member, shop steward and state organiser of the Amalgamated Metal Workers Union. He was president of the workshops committee at General Motors-Holden's, Elizabeth, and a delegate to the UTLC. His story about WorkCover, injured workers and occupational health and safety is contained in a book called Movers and Shakers.

Mr Acting President, I note that both you and I attended the launch of Movers and Shakers. I found that experience to be remarkable, because I did not know that we were going to be discussing WorkCover. I did not know the relevance of the stories and the people whom I met (many of them for the first time) at that gathering. I know, Mr Acting President, that you have had some things to say in this place on the occasion of the launch of Movers and Shakers—

The Hon. S.G. Wade: Not on WorkCover—

The Hon. M. PARNELL: No; it was on Movers and Shakers, but the important—

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Hon. I.K. Hunter): Order! The Hon. Mr Wade will come to order and not interject.

The Hon. M. PARNELL: The important thing, given my previous comments and the comments of the Treasurer, is that the only time that the Acting President or I or anyone else can discuss these issues that are important to South Australia and to working people is on private members days: we discuss it on a Wednesday. I think yesterday we tolerated some interference with that normal process, but now we are on to WorkCover.

Brian Mowbray said that most workers in Australia were aware of the May Day parades, processions and demonstrations in other states and around the world, but we did not really have that tradition so much in South Australia. In South Australia, the Labor Party and Trades Hall had focused on the Labour Day holiday in October, which was to celebrate workers' gains.

People might have seen the bumper sticker that talks about unions—the people who brought to you the weekend—which is why I think it will be an outrage to the legacy not only of Labor but also to mothers if we are forced the sit on Mothers Day. Brian Mowbray said it was decided that the May Day parade should be resurrected to celebrate workers' struggles and show international solidarity. He said that it had been 30 years since Adelaide had held a May Day march. He also said:

I was on delegation in April 1975 for four weeks to organise the big event and set about involving the unions, the Labor and Communist parties, student unions, Aboriginal organisations and various national groups, Cypriots, Greeks, Lebanese, Irish, the Young Socialist League and the Union of Australian Women. The Adelaide May Day march in 1975 was very successful and Adelaide is back on the international May Day map.

We saw that last weekend, and the topic was WorkCover. It was not a celebration of achievements: it was a bitter recognition of the struggle that lay ahead, in terms of tackling this unfair legislation. I was very happy to be a part of it, and I look forward to being part of it in years to come.

The rally on May Day was on the weekend but prior to that, on 1 May, there was the May Day dinner, which I was very pleased to attend. I know that a number of other members attended: the Hon. John Gazzola was there, as were the Hon. Ian Hunter and the President, the Hon. Bob Sneath. Again, the topic of discussion around the table was WorkCover. Sharan Burrow, the national leader of the union movement in Australia, also attended. She talked about a range of things, but prominent in her address was WorkCover.

We also had the rally on the weekend and, again, the commentators around that rally all focused on WorkCover. If one looks at any of the media monitoring and the television news reports, one will see that they all focus on WorkCover and the attack on injured workers being perpetrated by the Labor government. I have no doubt that, whilst a few honourable members attended the WorkCover rally, the vast majority of them were too embarrassed to show their face.

I was very proud that the Greens were in attendance at the May Day rally in great numbers. In fact, alongside union banners there was a sea of green triangles and signs saying, 'Defend workers' rights' and other slogans that basically showed the Greens' commitment—a commitment that is entirely lacking in the Labor Party.

It will be interesting whether this issue of WorkCover will sour those long-term relationships between the labour movement and the Labor Party. The anger that was expressed at the rally and the people who have talked to me leave me in no doubt that these people will not be taken for mugs. They have long memories and, come March 2010, they will remember what has been done to them.

A few members of the Labor Party in the corridors (and that means I will not name them) have said to me, 'Mark, don't you fret about that. They know that we are their only hope, and this will soon blow over. These people will come back to the fold. They are just flirting with you in the Greens. They know that the real action is the Labor Party, and we will soon get them back.' That attitude, I think, has been reflected in a number of comments on the record from political leaders. I think that it is foolish in the extreme for the Labor Party to take its heartland for granted in the way it is doing.

The Sunday Mail reported on the May Day rally, I think, in fairly accurate terms. In his article David Nankervis stated:

The annual May Day celebration of workers' rights yesterday turned into a condemnation of the state government's controversial proposed WorkCover changes. Thousands of workers and union members chanted 'Mr Rann, can your plan.'

Anyone who was in the city on that day could not have failed to hear that chant and be moved by both the simplicity of the message and the passion with which it was delivered. So, they chanted as they took to the streets to protest against the proposed cuts to injured workers' entitlements. The article further states:

March organisers said the controversial WorkCover legislation now before parliament had increased the typical May Day turnout tenfold to a crowd of more than 2,000.

Normally, to increase a crowd tenfold, one would expect that the conservative forces in parliament must have done something. It is almost impossible to believe that the reason for a tenfold turnout was a Labor government initiative aimed at cutting the rights of injured workers. The article continues:

The placards were damning of Premier Mike Rann and the language of speakers addressing the crowd was sometimes blue as the passions ran high.

The article goes on:

South Australian Union Secretary, Janet Giles, branded Mr Rann arrogant for reducing injury entitlements to fund a cut to the business levy—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. M. PARNELL: I thank my colleagues for helping me to get my words right. I do say that we have sat until midnight two nights in a row, and we are more articulate when we have had more sleep, but I thank my friends for their assistance. The article continues:

The people marching today feel hurt and betrayed. They fought to get rid of the Howard government's unfair industrial relations policy only to see the state Labor government do this to workers compensation.

I was very pleased that I was given the opportunity to address the May Day rally. The first thing I said was: 'Aren't you glad you did not throw away your rights at work T-shirts? Aren't you glad you did not put them in the ragbag for mopping up spills? Aren't you glad you didn't take them down to the op shop as clothing surplus to requirements? Who would have thought that your 'Rights at Work' T-shirts would need to be brought out again to protest against a Labor government and what it is doing to workers.' The David Nankervis article goes on:

Australian Manufacturing Workers Union Secretary, John Camillo, told the crowd at Victoria Square that the new legislation was 'bulls...—

I will not say that word in parliament, but I am sure Hansard know how to record that with decorum—

and said injured workers would lose $1.2 billion in entitlements over the next six years.

I repeat: $1.2 billion in entitlements. Let us keep that figure in our minds while we consider the government's approach, which is to say, 'Get the legislation through. Don't spend too long debating it. Don't ask too many questions. Don't move any amendments.' An amount of $1.2 billion in injured workers entitlements to be cut. If nothing else, that gives us not just authority but responsibility to debate this legislation properly. David Nankervis' article concludes:

Primary school teacher Sue Filp spoke of her concerns. 'I think WorkCover is an issue for any employee', the 55-year old said.

I think that is important to note, and it was not lost on the workers who were attending the WorkCover rally, because it is probably fair to say that most of them had not been injured at work, but they know, especially those who work in dangerous industries, that it is on the cards that one day it could happen to them and they were keen in solidarity with injured colleagues past and injured colleagues future to ensure that the system was as fair as we could get it.

This campaign is not just being driven by injured workers: it is being driven by anyone who may end up becoming injured. Whilst we have not had any meaningful contributions from the members of the Labor Party in this chamber on WorkCover, I could not let go without commenting on a remark of the Hon. Bernard Finnigan when he said in this chamber, 'When you vote for the ALP, you know what you stand for.' I think we need to explore that comment; that is, what it means to vote for the ALP and know what it stands for.

The Hon. S.G. Wade: Hypocrisy and arrogance.

The Hon. M. PARNELL: The Hon. Stephen Wade says, 'Hypocrisy and arrogance.'

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Stephen Wade is out of order.

The Hon. M. PARNELL: I will try not to be baited by the Hon. Stephen Wade, but I do agree with him. Part of the fundamentals of our democratic system is that people vote for parties and they vote for candidates according to what they stand for. The Hon. Bernard Finnigan wants you to know what the Labor Party stands for. We know what the Labor Party is doing because we have this legislation, but what does it stand for? It is clear from this legislation that the ALP platform is being torn up into confetti by the government in its relentless pursuing of its attack on working families.

The 2005 South Australian ALP platform (the current South Australian ALP platform) has a section called 'Working with industry and unions'. This is the party's commitment to engaging with key stakeholders. It does not take too long going through that to realise that it has been thrown out the window. At point 51 the South Australian Labor platform states:

Labor recognises that collaboration between unions and industry is crucial in maintaining and furthering developing jobs and the economy.

I agree with that, but what is this business about collaboration between unions as well as industry? Where have the unions figured in this Labor Party attack?

The unions have not had access to key decision makers in any meaningful way. In fact, when forums are established to enable that to occur, faceless men and women in suits cancel meetings to ensure that this interaction does not properly happen. Point 52 of the South Australian ALP platform states:

Strategic partnerships need to be built upon between industry, unions and Government agencies involved in economic development, regional affairs, and employment and skill formation.

Again unions are regarded in the policy as an integral part, yet on WorkCover what do we see? We see thousands of unionists taking to the streets calling metaphorically for the Premier's head on a platter—'Mike Rann can your plan' was the chant. Point 54 on the South Australian ALP platform states:

Unions play a pivotal role in representing and training workers to ensure that employment conditions in South Australia are best practice, in order to facilitate high productivity and jobs growth.

'Employment conditions' do not mean just the wages and conditions of people when they are in the workplace and on the job but they also mean their rights and entitlements when they are injured in their workplaces, because that connection is there. If the workplace was the cause of the injury, the Labor Party should be insisting that our conditions are best practice, so that brings us back to the point about whether this is the fairest system.

The government says there will be partnerships and collaboration with unions. It agrees that unions play a pivotal role, but as far as the attack on working families is concerned it is not what the government is now doing. The peak body for unions in South Australia, SA Unions, was given a commitment by the Premier that, once the Clayton report was released, the government would sit down with the union movement and work through the issues and do its best to come up with a consensus position. That clearly has not happened. It is another blatantly broken promise of this government. There was no consultation whatsoever between the government and the union movement—the union movement which unquestionably is a key stakeholder in workers compensation matters—and there was no consultation on what approach should be taken in response to the Clayton report. So much for lip service to strategic partnerships and collaboration found in the ALP platform.

It is clear that the Premier could not care less what is in the ALP platform, because he simply ignores it when it suits him. The current ALP platform has more to say. Item 71 states:

Effective industrial relations practices are important to the social well-being of the people of South Australia and the sustainable growth of the South Australian economy. The statewide industrial relations environment in South Australia should be based on cooperation and consultation between employees, employers and their voluntary associations [that means unions] supported by legislative framework that supports employment and protects the rights of all parties.

If you were looking to see who you might want to vote for and thought you would do your research and read the South Australian Labor Party platform, you would have trouble faulting those words. It is only when you pay attention to what is actually happening on the ground that you realise those words are hollow. The ALP platform at point 72 provides:

Labor supports a cooperative and participatory approach to industrial relations that will achieve optimal outcome for workers, employers and the community, whilst also advancing the economic development of the state. In this view government plays an influential role in the establishment of an equitable industrial relations system that provides an independent adjudicator for the resolution of disputes and claims to facilitate the prompt settlement of disputes.

So much for cooperation and consultation, because apparently that does not apply when it comes to the government's attack on working families, the families of injured workers. There is no participatory approach here. The government has totally excluded the union movement from consultation on responding to the Clayton report. Again the Premier is ignoring his own party's platform. The party platform, I remind members, has the face of the Premier on its front cover. The ALP platform goes on to state, at point 77:

The Rann Labor government's new fair work legislation will protect workers rights and entitlements, while also strengthening the foundations for business to help further grow South Australia's economy. The reforms instituted by the fair work legislation include—

a minimum wage for all South Australians...

The importance of that to this legislation and to WorkCover is that under this bill many injured workers will have their pay slashed to well below the minimum wage. The ALP platform, again with the Premier's face on the front cover, states at point 85:

Labor believes there should be genuine and real improvement in the terms and conditions of the employment of working people, and that workers should have improved control over working hours, spread of hours and roster arrangements to avoid excessive and potentially dangerous hours of work.

That is the link with the workers compensation regime: avoiding excessive and potentially dangerous hours of work. That is the policy of the government: to say that there should be real and genuine improvement, yet this bill takes an axe to the terms and conditions of South Australian workers if they are so unfortunate as to be injured at work.

So, the ALP platform says one thing and the Premier does something else. At point 86 the platform provides:

For Labor, workers should have appropriate superannuation to support their retirement year. The provision of adequate superannuation entitlements to every working person is a necessity.

I agree with that. One might wonder what that has to do with WorkCover as it is about superannuation, but we will find as we go through the detail that the first thing to go when you are injured is your superannuation. I also point out and emphasise the words in the platform that refer to 'every working person', but working people who may be struck down with an injury or illness as a result of employer negligence get no more superannuation payments. If a 20 year old is made a quadriplegic through gross employer negligence, they will not get a single cent more in superannuation contributions for the rest of their life. What sort of retirement income do they have to look forward to?

That is an aspect of this legislation that I would not have appreciated if I had not taken the time, as is our duty in this place, to sit down with those most affected by it. I did not know that that was the first thing to go. Most of us who have spent our working lives in the era of compulsory superannuation look forward to a reasonable sum on retirement. It may not be entirely sufficient to see us through to the end of our days, but most of us will have sums in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, but if you are cut down as a working person in the prime of your life then you will not have that long-term benefit.

The comparison between members of parliament and their superannuation entitlements and workers and their entitlements needs to be made, because members of parliament, in particular those who have been here longer—the ones who are on the older schemes; less so with new members—will be getting superannuation benefits that ordinary working people could not even dream about. But the Premier, in spite of the ALP's platform, does nothing to address this gross injustice, that is, where injured workers lose their rights to superannuation, and they lose that right because they were unlucky enough to be injured at work.

I mentioned previously the contribution the union movement has made in the past, and continues to make, and I understand that today at 1.30 there will be some more said about that. The media have shown great interest, especially in the way in which this debate has proceeded. The ALP platform, at point 116, goes on to state:

Labor believes that employers have a responsibility to provide comprehensive rehabilitation and compensation to workers who have suffered work-related injury or disease. This responsibility can best be met by representatives of worker and employer interests in conjunction with government.

So, getting beyond the generic in the Labor Party platform, we now get into the specific bits that relate to workplace safety and rehabilitation and compensation. Despite what the ALP platform says, this bill will deliver a completely gutted workers compensation system. There will be harsh attacks on family budgets: the first one after 13 weeks of a worker being off work; the next one after 26 weeks; and then many workers will be automatically dumped on the social security scrapheap after 130 weeks.

The bill does not provide for comprehensive rehabilitation and compensation. The holes in this bill are so big you could drive a truck through them, and with holes that big it is inevitable and sad that many workers will fall through those holes and end up on the scrapheap—and that is Premier Rann's plan for working people and working families.

It also clear that the government's approach to this bill is totally out of step with the ALP's national platform. The ALP's national platform, at point 8, states:

Labor is committed to its future partnership with the trade union movement. The Australian Labor Party was born out of the trade union movement, and it struggles for a secure, decent and dignified life for working people. In partnership with the labour movement, Labor governments in the past have achieved great things for working Australians. Labor is committed to protecting and advancing the rights of working families, including their rights to join trade unions, to organise in the workplace, to bargain collectively, and to exercise their right to strike.

Our partnership with the trade union movement remains crucial for Australia's future. The trade union movement remains one of the largest and most representative community movements in Australia, representing millions of Australians and their families. The next Labor government will restore the balance between the interests of different parts of the Australian community and build a constructive partnership with the trade union movement to foster productive and harmonious workplaces in the interests of working families.

The national platform, as with the state platform, shows that the government's deeds do not follow its words; in fact, the government has done its best to tear up any partnership with the trade union movement by completely excluding it from negotiations in determining what should be an appropriate response to the Clayton report.

So, so much for the rights of advancing the rights of working families. This bill hacks away at the rights of working families, and it does it in the same way the Howard government's WorkChoices legislation did. The ALP national platform also has a section entitled 'Fairness', which states:

Labor believes that all people are created equal in their entitlement to dignity and respect. We cannot afford to waste the talent or potential of any Australian. For Labor, government has a critical role in ensuring—

Then there are a number of dot points, as follows:

Respect for every person's rights at work;

Equal opportunity and protection from unfair discrimination;

Sufficient basic income and assets to provide quality of life for all Australians;

Let us focus on that word 'income', because that is what is going to be cut when this legislation goes through. The platform goes on:

Special support for those with particular needs, including indigenous Australians, women, people from non-English speaking backgrounds, the long-term unemployed, homeless, disabled, frail, aged, and mentally ill;

Universal social rights, including the opportunity for fulfilling employment, quality education, universal health care, and access to affordable housing;

A more equitable distribution of wealth and income.

Again, that last dot point, we are told, goes to the heart of what Labor stands for in terms of the equitable distribution of wealth and income. Yet no-one who looks at this WorkCover legislation can see it as anything other than a direct transfer of wealth from injured workers to their employers: that is what the WorkCover legislation does. Is that an equitable distribution of wealth and income?

The reason it is a direct transfer is that it is not sufficient for the government just to cut the entitlements of injured workers; it has to twist that knife further by saying, 'And we will give your bosses, your employers, a cut in their levy as well.' I cannot understand why the government, even for just political reasons, would have been so stupid as to put those two things together. The first is bad enough, but to then cut the levy so that employers do not have to pay any more towards addressing the unfunded liability makes absolutely no sense to me, on blatant political grounds, let alone its inherent unfairness.

This bill does not respect rights at work, the fairness that Labor talks about in its national platform. It takes away rights at work. It takes away the right to be compensated for your full wage of the first year of your injury. That is the first cut. If you are out of work, the first thing to go is your super and the next thing to go is your wage. This is all within the first year. It also takes away the right to be compensated in the longer term for a loss of earning capacity that is due to a work injury. We can only feel for those workers who are cut down in the early stages of their working careers who see their futures taken away. They may have had brilliant careers ahead of them in a range of trades, callings and occupations, and that has now been taken from them.

This legislation takes away the right to be compensated for having part of your finger chopped off or crushed. We will get to that later when we get the detail of this concept of whole of body impairment. Ask a concert pianist or a violin player whether half a finger is surplus to requirements when doing your day-to-day job.

In the newspaper today was a story about a bloke who left his Stradivarius in a taxi. It was worth $4 million but someone gave it back to him. If he had lost half a finger it would have been as crushing to him as losing the $4 million Stradivarius in the taxi. Hopefully, he will never lose a finger—and I was very pleased to hear that he got his violin back.

The bill does not respect rights at work; in fact, it abolishes rights at work. The bill does not work towards a more equitable distribution of wealth and income. As I said, it is a direct cash transfer from injured workers and their families to business, and there is nothing equitable about that. This bill is about a less equitable distribution, not more. It is the opposite to what the platform says Labor stands for. The Labor platform also goes on to state at point 11 under the heading 'Fairness and Flexibility at Work':

Labor believes in fairness at work as a fundamental Australian value. Work is one of the most important parts of our lives which, besides its contribution to economic output, also contributes to personal financial security, identity, and a sense of community.

I will reflect on that. I think the Labor Party platform here is right: work is more than about bringing in an income; it is integral to many people's engagement in society and in all parts of their lives. It is not just about putting food on the table. The national platform states:

Fairness at work includes the abolition of Australian workplace agreements and an industrial relations system in which there will be no statutory individual employment agreements.

That was the campaign last year—getting rid of Howard's unfair WorkChoices legislation. Those same people, with their same T-shirts dusted off, are now arguing against a state Labor government in relation to this bill. The platform also stated that fairness at work includes a strong safety net of minimum conditions. As we explore this bill in detail, we will see that those minimum conditions disappear. Someone on the minimum wage, whose wage is cut as a result of being injured at work, is no longer benefiting from those minimum conditions.

The platform says fairness at work includes access to an independent industrial umpire which will ensure fair wages and conditions and settle disputes. The regime for settling disputes is one of the most contentious parts of this WorkCover legislation, and Labor needs to be held to account for the inadequacies and unfairness of the dispute resolution mechanism.

Fairness at work includes the right to bargain collectively for decent wages and conditions. Bargaining collectively means through unions—the unions are being ignored in relation to WorkCover. Fairness at work includes the right to join a union, be represented by a union, fair rights if employees are unfairly dismissed and adherence by the Australian government to its international obligations, particularly as ratified through the International Labour Organisation conventions. That would be another fruitful line of enquiry, but it is not one that I am going to go down. I am happy to look at the Labor state platform and its national platform but, if we wanted to explore Labor's obligations under International Labour Organisation conventions, we would find equally serious breaches of trust by the South Australian Labor government.

The Hon. R.D. Lawson interjecting:

The Hon. M. PARNELL: Yes; the Hon. Robert Lawson says that we do need to look at what they do, rather than what they say.

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Mr Lawson is out of order.

The Hon. M. PARNELL: I ask, 'What is fair about having your pay slashed after 13 weeks when you are stuck in hospital because of a grossly negligent employer who knew that the brakes on your truck needed replacing but did not want to spend the money, and it led to a crash?' Gross negligence. What is the injured worker's result: they have their pay cut after 13 weeks. What is fair about having no appeal on the merits against a medical panel decision that is flat-out wrong and permanently stops your compensation payments?

We spent a lot of time on the bikies bill discussing this idea of being able to go to an umpire and being able to challenge administrative decisions. That is what these medical panels will be doing. They will be making binding administrative decisions, but there will not be the opportunity to properly challenge them. What is fair about being banned from taking civil action against a grossly negligent employer when workers in every other state can do that?

What is fair about good employers being forced to subsidise reckless and negligent employers? This bill is about making work injury rules unfair just to deliver savings to business. South Australia is already the lowest cost jurisdiction to do business in Australia. We need to come back to that, because we have been told that this legislation has a lot to do with South Australia's interstate business competitiveness. It does not take too much exploration to realise that that is just plain wrong.

The Workers Rehabilitation and Compensation Act is supposed to provide protection for injured workers against being sacked and to make sure that employers provide them with suitable duties, where it is reasonably practicable to do so. Despite common breaches of those laws under the Premier's WorkCover regime, the existing regime, WorkCover has never prosecuted an employer for breaches of those laws. Nothing in this bill does anything about fixing that situation. Fair rights when workers are unfairly dismissed do not mean a whole lot when the body charged with enforcing those rights—that is, WorkCover—refuses to make employers obey the law. Under the heading of Opportunity, point 14 of the National ALP platform states:

Labor is committed to giving all Australians the opportunity to achieve their potential and contribute to their community

in the following four ways:

to give every Australian the best educational opportunities, from early childhood education through school to vocational and technical education, and to university and beyond—

that is fine—

to help individuals build family life and advance their living standards and quality of life—

you have to ask how those living standards are advanced when low-paid workers have their pay cut to below minimum wage standards—

to gain access to employment, education, housing, health care, welfare services, information technology, culture and recreation and to exercise their legal rights; and—

We know that legal rights are out the window, but most of the other things require money, that is, take-home pay needs to be sufficient to meet those needs in relation to housing, health care and information technology. A low-paid worker whose wages have been cut as a result of injury needs to tell their kids, 'No; you can't have the information technology everyone else in your class has because we can't afford it any more because dad was hurt at work and his pay has now been cut.' The Labor policy continues:

to participate constructively in the life of the nation and the communities within it.

Injured workers are not being empowered to participate: they are being thrown onto the scrapheap. So, injured workers do not seem to have any place in this national Labor commitment. South Australian injured workers desperately need proper support and help to achieve their full potential and transition to feasible work pathways that allow them to contribute to the community.

The injured worker is absent from not just the workplace; they are absent from the footy coaching after work, from the cake stall on Saturday morning to help raise funds for the kindy and from the community. Their ability to contribute is diminished by their injury and, as a community, we are about to treat them most unfairly by cutting their wages.

I understand that a very senior official from Employers Mutual recently said, in response to a request for retraining for a particular worker, 'Why would we pay for that? We'll be able to kick you off the system as soon as the law changes anyway.' So, even though these draconian provisions have not found their way onto the statute book, they are already having an influence on the decisions that are being made by the claims managers under workers compensation. They are saying, 'Why would we help you retrain? We will be able to get rid of you off the system pretty soon.' What an indictment! We have not even passed this legislation yet, but it is already having that sort of an impact.

The government's WorkCover plan denies injured workers access to the best educational opportunities and denies them the opportunity to retrain and get on with their life. Union leader John Camillo has talked to me a number of times about the importance of retraining and how its absence in this legislation is a glaring hole that needs to be plugged, and we will look at doing that when we get to the committee stage.

The government's WorkCover plan stops injured workers from building their family life and advancing their living standards and quality of life. People will be aware of many stories about the stress of being on WorkCover, namely, getting the runaround, being denied simple and sensible help, dealing with the pain of injury and the financial pressures destroying family life and, in fact, breaking up families. You might think that the break-up of families is a non-economic consequence of the sort of misfortune that can result from an injury at work.

So, it is not just about unfunded liabilities or take-home pay, as important as they are. It is about the very structure of our society through families. Quite obviously, the living standards and quality of life of injured workers will be hard hit by this bill, particularly by the cuts to income. The element of the ALP National platform that is most relevant to this bill is item 15. Under the heading Compassion, it states:

Labor believes in social justice. As a nation, its greatness lies in our treatment of those among us who are most marginalised. We believe in a society that protects and supports those who face difficulties and disadvantage whether because of disability, illness, old age, misfortune or other factors that make it hard for a person to cope. Labor holds to its tradition of reaching out, embracing, protecting and supporting those in need—as well as supporting those who help people in need.

If I were a voter researching the options available on election day, and if I cared about issues such as how injured workers were treated in the system, and I read that, I would think, 'Gee, that is the party for me. I will vote for them.' Compassion! However, there can be no doubt that, in relation to being marginalised as a result of being an injured worker, the Labor commitment does not apply to you.

The very first of the reasons mentioned in the platform, the first reason for people suffering difficulties and disadvantage, is the word 'disability', and that is precisely what this bill is about. The reason people are on workers compensation is that their ability to do their work has gone as a result of an injury. They are, in that sense, disabled. It might be a temporary disability or a permanent disability but, under the Labor platform, they are deserving of compassion and do not get it. Their right to compassion is lost because they went to work and suffered the misfortune of an injury. This bill does not reach out to embrace, protect or support those who are in need, as Labor would have us believe. The bill sticks the boot in, and it sticks it in hard.

The Labor national platform also includes a section that is very relevant to a particular aspect of this bill, and that is the issue of medical panels. As I said earlier, this is one of the most contentious and controversial aspects of this bill. The part of the national Labor policy that relates to medical panels is under the heading of Human Rights, a topic we have discussed until midnight in the past two days, and I find I am discussing it again, not in relation to so-called bikies laws but in relation to WorkCover. Under Human Rights the national ALP platform states:

Labor is committed to a just and tolerant society which fully protects the rights and freedoms of all Australians. Labor supports the rights set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international treaties to which Australia is a party. This includes:

the fundamental political and civil rights of everyone to freedom of conscience, expression of association, and to due process of law.

[We respect basic human rights] such as...access to tertiary education on the basis of merit, access to adequate health care, and the right to [reasonable working conditions].

Labor supports the introduction into Australian domestic law of the rights recognised and protected in the international treaties, conventions and protocols to which Australia is a party. In introducing these rights, Labor will ensure that existing rights are also protected.

The relevance of that part of the Labor Party's platform is that the introduction of medical panels under this bill abolishes injured workers' rights to due process of law. It provides a system where untrained people make final and binding decisions on questions of fact and law (questions such as: does this person have the right qualifications and experience to do a particular job?) and where there is no appeal on the merits. The answer to that question is not due process of law. I expect that many doctors will be quick to agree that being a doctor does not mean that you have any special expertise in knowing exactly what training and experience is needed to operate a jumbo drill underground at Olympic Dam, but that is just what the medical panels will be deciding in this bill, and there will be no appeal on the merits if they get it wrong. That is not due process of law.

Even serious criminals get to appeal decisions which affect them and which are wrong on their merits, but the Premier's bill proposes to take away that right from injured workers. So, in the criminal justice system there is a process of appeal but, if you are an injured worker, you do not have that right. So, for all that we talk about law and order (and we have talked about nothing else for the past two days), this bill stacks the deck against hard-working South Australians who suffer from gross employer negligence in the workplace, and it stacks the deck against them far more severely than if they were serious or violent criminals.

This bill, in fact, is the reverse of the reasonable working conditions that the ALP national platform talks about. You have to ask: how is it reasonable for an injured worker to be banned from having any civil rights when there is gross employer negligence when, in every other state, the workers have that right? That is the question of common law. The simple answer is: it is not reasonable. Once again, the bill is the reverse of what the ALP platform says.

I find it remarkable, as well, because with those words on human rights, about how we will comply with international standards, when I have brought important legislation to this place on a private member's day seeking to enshrine some connection between our administrative decision makers, ministers, bureaucrats and international treaties, I have had no support from the government for that position. In fact, this state has an act of parliament called the Administrative Decisions (Effect of International Instruments) Act, which specifically says that no bureaucrat, minister and public official in this state need have regard to any of the international treaties that South Australia has signed.

If you said to most people, 'South Australia signed a treaty. What does that mean?', the person in the street would say, 'Well, it means that we are committed to it. It means that we will follow it.' But, no, not in South Australia. We are the only state where there is that provision that says that we do not have to follow international conventions unless we have enacted them into domestic legislation, and so few of our international treaties have ever found their way into an act of parliament. I have tried in this place to give the opportunity for the government to remedy that situation, and I will do it again. I think I have introduced that bill twice.

I have six more years, so I will introduce it again and we will try to get our state officials committed to international rights. As I said, I am happy to go through what Labor says it stands for on issues such as workers' rights and WorkCover, and through its state and national platforms. I will not take the time of the chamber by going through every international treaty we have signed that tries to guarantee workers' rights, but I can tell members that the breaches there are as gross as they are in the Labor Party's domestic platforms. The government has made it very clear that the reason for this bill is so that it can cut levy rates for business.

I think that the ALP platform is quite right. We do not have to sacrifice fairness and compassion in order to be competitive, because with the existing workers compensation scheme (which is far more compassionate than this current bill) South Australia is already the most competitive jurisdiction in Australia in terms of its business costs. We are the most competitive, with an average 3 per cent levy rate.

The question is: if we are already the most competitive and we have a 3 per cent rate, what is that pressing economic need, we are told, to increase our position by cutting the levy rate? We are already the top. We are already the best place in which to do business. The ALP's international platform, under the heading 'Safe and Healthy Workplaces', states:

The current application of the ComCare Scheme and the commonwealth's occupational health and safety jurisdiction to the private sector is bad policy because it has created a complication of federal arrangements, undermining of entitlements (such as access to journey accident and common law claims) and a safety gap where basic safety standards will not be properly enforced.

The national ALP platform clearly says that it is not on to undermine the entitlements of injured workers, such as access to journey accidents and common law claims. This current bill continues to stop injured South Australian workers making almost all journey accident claims (and that is one of these loopholes through which you can drive a truck), and it entrenches the ban on South Australian workers—unlike the workers in every other state—from being able to make common law claims where their employer's negligence or recklessness has hurt them.

People talk about common law. It is not something that is clearly understood by most people. Let us talk more about negligence and the ability to hold people to account for their negligent behaviour, because that is what common law is really all about. It is being able to say, 'The reason you are injured, the reason you are hurt, is because of the negligence of your employer. Your employer should be held to account.'

The Hon. A. Bressington: Then why won't they consider common law?

The Hon. M. PARNELL: The Hon. Ann Bressington asks: why won't they consider it? I say to the honourable member: let us explore this in some detail when we reach the committee stage. Let us make the case. Let us see whether we can convince our colleagues here in the Legislative Council to support an extension to this scheme that would bring us into line with every other state in Australia.

The ALP is out of step with its own platform. However, it is not just the platform. One can look at the National Constitution of the ALP, which seeks to sum up what it stands for. It says that it stands for 'the abolition of poverty and the achievement of greater equality in the distribution of income, wealth and opportunity'. I touched on those points earlier, when I was talking about the state platform.

The state platform reflects the National Constitution of the ALP: abolition of poverty—but not if you are an injured worker on already low wages; if you are already on the minimum wage, you will be receiving below minimum wages.

The Hon. A. BRESSINGTON: Mr President, I rise on a point of order and draw your attention to the state of the council.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Hon. J.S.L. Dawkins): A quorum not being present, ring the bells.

A quorum having been formed:

The Hon. M. PARNELL: Quite obviously, despite the ALP's stated position, this bill will result in less equality in the distribution of income, wealth and opportunity, not more. So, it is directly counter to what the Labor Party tells the people of Australia that it stands for. Either Premier Rann is ignoring the National Constitution of the ALP, or maybe his spin is that it is only the federal ALP that is interested in more equality and the Rann government wants to see less equality; because that is what this bill delivers.

I think that political parties should be more honest in their dealings with the community. If less equality is Labor's game, let us not just put it through in legislation; let us entrench it in your constitutional and policy documents as well. This bill takes money from the kitchen tables of disabled workers and their families and puts it into the pocket of business.

Given that much of this bill is modelled on the Victorian legislation, I think it is useful to consider the situation in Victoria and compare it with what this government is doing in South Australia. When the Victorian ALP went to the people in the 2006 election it quite rightly listed the restoration of injured workers' common law rights as an achievement. The following is part of what the Victorian ALP said about the Victorian Liberals:

The previous Liberal government had little regard for workplace safety or for Victorians hurt at work. It cut benefits to injured workers, removed the right to sue a negligent employer and, despite all this, the WorkCover scheme had a billion dollar deficit.

From that brief description, the Victorian ALP could just as well have been talking about the Rann Labor government when it said that. This government is cutting benefits to injured workers and it will not let injured workers sue a negligent employer, which is just like the Liberal Jeff Kennett.

There is every chance that, with the current atrocious management of WorkCover, injured workers will suffer badly from these cuts, and there will still be problems with the unfunded liability. That is an issue which we will have to explore in detail; that is, whether one of the stated primary objectives of this bill—reducing the unfunded liability—will be achieved with these cuts to injured workers' entitlements. In the foreword to the South Australian ALP rules, the Premier says:

We seek to provide the people of Australia with 'a decent, secure, dignified and constructive way of life' based on 'the political and social values of equality, democracy, liberty and social cooperation'—the essence of democratic socialism. This is the strength of Labor. And the core of our credentials.

Without labouring the point, it really is a case of looking at what they do rather than what they say because, under this bill, South Australian workers have their chance of a 'decent, secure, dignified and constructive way of life' being ripped away from them.

By tearing up South Australian injured workers' chance at a 'decent, secure, dignified and constructive way of life', I think that the Premier, to a large extent, has torn up his own credentials. Let us look at the ALP not just through its statutory documents or through the documents it has put out to the people saying what it stands for, but let us look at some of Labor's heritage, because I think that, on this WorkCover issue, the Labor greats of the past would be revolted at this state Labor plan.

Labor legends such as Jack Wright and Clyde Cameron would be horrified at Premier Rann's savage attack on workers' rights. People like Jack Wright and Clyde Cameron, Labor greats, were all about improving workers' rights, not destroying them. That is exactly what the Premier is doing. If we look at things such as the work capacity review, the Premier is banking on tearing up between $350 million and $400 million in workers' entitlements just using that mechanism alone, and that money will be paid straight to business.

I mentioned earlier that I had attended the launch of Movers and Shakers. The Movers and Shakers project was about recording Labor history through the eyes of some of its most prominent campaigners, in particular those people who were still alive and who have worked on programs and projects, and other ways to improve the lot of working people in this state. The idea for recording the stories of these older Labor activists came from a discussion in 2004 between three key union leaders; namely, Janet Giles, Mark Butler and Anne McEwen.

The three of them, with some support, successfully applied to the state Labor government for a grant under the Positive Ageing grant program to record this 100 years of Labor history. The Movers and Shakers record is a government-funded document, and I think the irony of that is not lost on members. The interviews that were conducted to pull this history together were described by the editor, Jim Douglas, as being inspirational and often very emotional. Jim and his colleagues recorded stories of great struggles, hard times, deep pain, courage and humour. He says:

It was wonderful to see the looks on the faces of such proud working warriors, many of whom were so humble and grateful that their stories would be kept as part of South Australian Labor history...It is easy to forget the hardships and struggles of the past endured by these people to achieve decent living wages, superannuation, reduced working hours, safety on the job—

and that is a key here with WorkCover—

and the broader issues of peace, social justice and equity. These stories are told at a critical time in Australian history when workers are experiencing constant attacks on their hard fought award conditions and pensioners and unemployed people are suffering great hardship under an ultra conservative Liberal government.

That was the rhetoric of late last year prior to the federal election. I wonder whether, if Movers and Shakers were being put together today, the words 'ultra conservative Liberal government' would be replaced with the words 'ultra conservative Labor government'. The activists' stories in Movers and Shakers reveal that the struggle to preserve and improve living and working conditions never ends. It does not end: we need to be eternally vigilant to make sure that hard-won freedoms are not stripped away. Jim Douglas concludes:

These activists have shared with us their knowledge of the past and the courage of their endeavours. Their example inspires the determination to educate and empower the next generation so that we can come together to create new chapters in the history of the working-class struggle.

As tempting as it is to go through the whole of Movers and Shakers, I will not, as there is far too much material there, but there are a couple of stories that relate directly to the legislation we are dealing with. They relate to the struggles that working people have gone through to try to bring about improvements. One of those stories is that of Mick Gallant. Mick was an apprentice in Port Pirie. He was in the Boiler Makers and Blacksmiths Society originally. Later his union activity at Mount Gambier focused mainly on work safety, and he has a long and abiding interest in trade union training, sociology and community activism, which led to him working for the unions and for the government, the Department of Labour, as a project officer. In his story he says:

I still recall overhearing emotional discussions around our table on workplace issues and work accidents. When a worker fell into a hopper above the crusher, dad was lowered down to him on a rope chair and managed to get him out before he was crushed.

Being lowered down on a rope chair might not be the sort of thing now, but people fall into hoppers and machinery and are injured and damaged in very physical workplaces. Mick goes on:

When I was eight we moved to Port Pirie where dad worked at the Broken Hill Associated smelters. Dinner table discussions continued about work issues, such as the accident where a workman's foot slipped through a crust of slag into molten lead.

It just does not bear thinking about, that your foot would go through a crust into molten lead—just dreadful. I remember my own father, who worked in industry his whole life, falling into a vat of a caustic solution and, if there had not be a vat of water right next door that he could leap into, he would have been terribly injured. He lost all his clothes, which were completely destroyed, but he survived with minimal injuries. Dreadful stories! Mick says:

I witnessed two major accidents during my apprenticeship, including a trades' assistant falling from way up inside the large smoke stack, which dominates the skyline of Port Pirie. The role the union took in giving support to the family and those involved was something that left a lasting memory.

He concludes:

Crucial to my own development was the support and direction provided by the union movement. This gave me an understanding of the difference between the needs of workers and employers, an understanding of politics and the confidence to take on further study to try to improve the working conditions of all around me. I understand from my work experiences the significant impact that health and safety issues have on people's lives.

The message we take from that, as well as the gruesome examples of the types of injuries that can occur in the workplace, is that workers compensation has been at the heart of many union activists' engagement with the union movement. It is the reason that many people have engaged. I will read a brief extract from another story; in fact, it is about one of the Labor heroes and movers and shakers, Gwyneth Regioni, who I had the great pleasure to sit with at my table at the May Day dinner. Gwyneth, who is from the UK originally, was a shop steward for the Federated Clerks Union and also with what is now the CPSU. She was a workers' rights officer for the United Trades and Labor Council and also an industrial officer for the Vehicle Building Employees Federation. Referring to her time with the Federated Clerks Union as a shop steward, Gwyn says:

My position in payroll gave me the opportunity to see what was happening to some other employees. Workers compensation was covered by private insurers in those days, and people would ring me, crying because they had not been paid for three months and they couldn't work because of their injuries.

I would have to talk to the insurance companies and listen to horrible jokes about 'Mediterranean back'. I saw really awful things happening to some of the other workers. One boy's hand was severed, while another lad fell into a bath of caustic soda—

a similar experience to the one suffered by my metal worker father—

This experience really had a politicising effect on me and made me realise the importance of unionism.

So, again, people who are currently active in the labour movement were politicised through their contact with real people in real situations who have suffered as a result of being injured at work. It is interesting that there is a reference in Gwyn's story to the private insurance companies, because one part of this bill that we will need to go through in some detail is the role of the exempt or so-called self-insured employers, that is, how does that fit into the scheme, and are we properly managing all workplaces?

The self-insurers who have come to see me say that they do a better job of managing their claims than the people whose claims are managed by WorkCover. I have had other people tell me that that is not the case and that there is some cross-subsidy going on. I think we need to dig down through this, because I know the self-insurers are not happy with some aspects of this bill, and I know a number of people in the union movement are not happy with the self-insurers.

In the absence of a decent discussion between the labour movement, industry and the Labor Party, we find that we have to have this discussion in the Legislative Council; this has to be our forum for raising these issues.

One story I want to refer to briefly is that of the late Jack Watkins who, I understand, may have passed away shortly before the book was published. Jack, who was English born, eventually came to Australia in 1966. He worked on construction sites in Adelaide, and he became an organiser for the Builders Labourers' Federation. He is described as 'a fearless fighter for workers' rights and a champion for raising awareness of the dangers of asbestos'. The story goes on:

The use of asbestos in construction was becoming an issue as more was learned of its fatal effects. One of Jack's members was dying from asbestos-induced cancer and knew of the efforts of the Builders Labourers' Federation to gain publicity. The member offered to do a TV interview, which took place just two days before he died. His widow was left virtually destitute, so Jack organised union pickets against the former employer and protests to the then Labor government, and she was eventually paid compensation. This was Jack's first public foray into the public arena on this issue, but it was not his last. It was the beginning of a lifelong commitment to the cause of public education about asbestos and the elimination of its use.

I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.


[Sitting suspended from 13:00 to 14:15]


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