On the 8th of May, Mark spoke for 8 hours in opposition to the Government's Workers Rehabilitation and Compensation (Scheme Review) Amendment Bill.

The main themes of Mark's speech were:
- a response to Attorney General Michael Atkinson's attack on the Upper House choosing to debate the 'Bikie' Bill (Serious and Organised Crime (Control) Bill) before WorkCover
- how the WorkCover Bill is totally inconsistent with ALP policy
- a large number of injured worker's stories
- a response to the Government's claim that SA will have the most generous scheme in Australia
- description and commentary on the SA Unions campaign, and the previous Union-led campaign against changes to WorkCover in 1994/5
- the reading into Hansard of a presentation that Janet Giles gave to MP's in Parliament House summarising the SA Unions position - a presentation that no Labor or Liberal MP had the courtesy to attend
- how MP's are treated differently if they are injured at work
- a description of what an 'unfunded liability' is, and alternative ways to fix it besides the slashing of worker's rights.

After 25 years of contested debate on WorkCover, a dozen major reviews, and many different stakeholders including a betrayed union movement and hundreds of angry injured workers, there is an extraordinary amount of information on this issue that deserves to be on the public record.


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 were included in this morning's The Advertiser. At 20 minutes past two yesterday, he Adelaide Now website posted an the 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 they adjourned it time and time 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 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 rebating 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, that 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 of 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 it 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 am going to make no apology about taking my time in exploring the detail of this legislation.

What has amazed me over the last 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 to 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 underused 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 the 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 Labor 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 forebears 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 do you 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 Labor 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 Malbray. 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 Malbray 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 Labor 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 Malbray 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 Labor 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 they stand 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 it 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 Labor 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 right 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 them 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 workers' 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; they have 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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Adjourned debate on second reading (resumed on motion).

The Hon. M. PARNELL (15:31): It is very pleasing to see that historical revisionism is alive and well in the ranks of the Labor Party; I hope the people in my office are now going back through my inbox and looking at the letters the minister sent telling us, for two sitting weeks in a row, that —

The Hon. P. Holloway: It was four weeks ago.

The Hon. M. PARNELL: It might have been four weeks ago when we were ready to debate that damn bikies bill, yet day after day the minister adjourned it. This is outrageous, and I am pleased by the interjections I am hearing from my Liberal colleagues in the opposition. They know the truth of this matter.

However, I will just make a very brief personal explanation myself. I have altered my wardrobe since last we sat. I was previously wearing a badge but I understand that that is not really parliamentary, so I have removed the badge and will not wear it in this session of parliament. The badge is from the —

An honourable member: Table it!

The Hon. M. PARNELL: I will not table it; it will stick. It is from the Public Service Association —

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY: I rise on a point of order. It was one thing for the Hon. Mark Parnell to act in ignorance of the standing orders, but to deliberately flout them in the way he is now doing in order to draw attention to it is outrageous. Mr Acting President, I ask that you uphold the standing orders in relation to displays in this place.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Hon. R.P. Wortley): Mr Parnell has recognised the fact that he was wearing a sticker; all he is doing is trying to read out the writing on the sticker. It is all part of his presentation.

Members interjecting:

The ACTING PRESIDENT: Could we please have some order and allow Mr Parnell to speak.

The Hon. M. PARNELL: I said it was in the nature of a personal explanation, and I do not wish to flout the traditions of this place so I will not wear the badge. The badge, when I was wearing it, read, 'Nobody asks to be injured at work. Don't cut injured workers' pay Mr Rann.' I think that message really is at the crux of my comments today.

Before we broke for lunch, I drew the council's attention to the contribution made by various members in the area of WorkCover and occupational health safety, and I had started to refer to the contribution of the late Jack Watkins. I want to read a brief passage from his entry in the Movers and Shakers book. It does relate to the passion with which working people and union representatives hold the occ health and safety and the WorkCover debate. I mentioned a number of instances in relation to asbestos. Jack was a great campaigner in relation to asbestos. In his entry it states:

The other incident occurred in Parliament House. The members were debating the issue of asbestos use and Dean Brown (Liberal Party) was on his feet claiming that there were absolutely no safety concerns. This was too much for Jack, who was in the public gallery, so he took a package from his pocket and sent a shower of white powder descending into the chamber below, claiming falsely that it was asbestos. The place was in an uproar, with people scrambling to leave. 'Under police escort and handcuffed, I was brought before the Speaker and charged with contempt of parliament, a hanging offence. The Speaker said that had shown contempt for the Queen's Rod, so I told him what to do with it. I knew I was in serious trouble and I was eventually banned from even the steps of parliament for three years. This incident received a lot of publicity.'

I remind members that Jack Watson became a member of the ALP Executive, president of the South Australian Labor Party, and was twice a preselected Labor candidate for state parliament. No-one can justify that type of behaviour, but I refer to it because it shows the passion with which working people have approached this debate in the past and approach it now.

When we think of WorkCover and people who are 'on compo' for injuries, quite naturally we tend to consider the most seriously injured workers who are in heavy industry, building, construction or manufacturing. However, the contribution in the Movers and Shakers book in relation to Joy Palmer reminds us that workplace injuries go far beyond those types of areas.

Joy Palmer was involved with the Public Service Association, and she became the first full-time official elected in South Australia. She has held the positions of joint national secretary and national president of the Community and Public Sector Union. She says that it was her interest in health and safety and the widespread introduction of computer technology which led her to visit workplaces. She said:

I was horrified to see the most appalling work practices, poor ergonomics, high-speed work rate and lack of appropriate training. It was not unusual to see typists with screens raised precariously on telephone books or, indeed, to be sitting on a phone book because their chairs were 1950s non-adjustable models. Closer investigation revealed thousands of women were suffering from repetitive strain injury. RSI, however, was not just a problem for keyboard operators, but extended to a range of other blue-collar industries and occupations. This led to a major campaign over several years which resulted in extensive redesign of work practices and a massive reduction in the number of injuries.

The message from that is one that is generally agreed in this debate, and that is that reducing workplace injuries and reducing the need for people to claim compensation are by far the best way of reducing the unfunded liability. What we will need to do when we explore the detail of this bill is to look at the question: does this legislation make workplaces safer?

The Hon. Ron Roberts (known to many people in this place, but not to me) also spent a great deal of his working life on issues such as occupational health and safety and WorkCover. Ron was active in the Electrical Trades Union. He was President of the local ETU branch. He became a member of this chamber (the Legislative Council) in 1989. He was a deputy leader and he was a president in this place. We should take a great deal of heed of his reflections. He said:

As an apprentice, I was a member of the Electrical Trades Union and affiliated with the ALP. Many of the people I worked with in that period were returned servicemen who had a great sense of discipline and unity. There was a shared understanding that what was good for one was good for all. Your word was your bond and these fine qualities became the norm.

I think that we need to reflect on those words and assurances, which people in the union movement tell me they have received from government ministers, that injured workers will not be worse off under this regime. The Hon. Ron Roberts said that one outcome of his experience in the trade union movement was that he learned to argue from a position of weakness rather than strength. He stated:

The trade union movement needs to be commended because every conservative government has tried to limit the unions' ability to do their job. I am actually pretty confident about the future of the trade union movement. The worth of the Legislative Council was shown when the Brown Liberal government was trying to cripple the union movement, particularly through an enormous attack on WorkCover. Labor opposition and the Democrats controlled the upper house and, with the support of the trade unions, we were able to maintain a reasonable system. It showed that, with trade union involvement, things could be achieved and that the unity of labour is the hope of the community.

I think that those words must ring very sourly in the ears of trade union officials today. Through all the internal channels (not channels of which I am a part, and I am not invited to those meetings), they have tried to get Labor to listen to them on this issue of WorkCover, but it has fallen on deaf ears.

I had a number of contributions I was going to refer to from the Movers and Shakers book, but I think that honourable members have the idea that generations of working people and their representatives have been fighting these issues from the earliest days. I guess that one of the take-home messages is that you might think you have achieved a result when you win a campaign, such as the one referred to by the Hon. Ron Roberts, only to find that without eternal vigilance you have to fight them again. The union movement is being eternally vigilant. I think that it has fought a very decent and competent campaign, and it is not about to stop. We are playing some small role here in doing justice to the debate that needs to occur and ensuring that this legislation is properly debated.

In pursuing this theme of the Labor Party's accountability to the people who elected it in the lower house, I have gone through its policies, its platforms and its constitution. However, I now want to refer very briefly to the words of one of its new and up-and-coming members. I hope that it is not a pattern that people start with ideals but end up jaded. I found fascinating the comments of Doug Cameron in his address to the Fabian Society in March this year. He reflected on these very questions, such as the responsiveness of the Labor Party to its traditional base in the trade unions, and WorkCover is at the heart of that debate at present.

I will not proceed to introduce Doug Cameron in any great detail, other than to say that most of his life has been spent working in the union movement. He has been an assistant state secretary and an assistant national secretary, and he was a national secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union and so on. It is a union CV as long as my arm. He will take up his seat in the Senate in Canberra on 1 July 2008.

Doug Cameron's speech to the Fabian Society was in response to a commentator, Mark Aarons, in a book edited by Robert Manne and entitled Dear Mr Rudd. He says that the trade union movement plays a crucial role in ensuring that the ALP is a party of vision and values with an anchor back to working-class Australians, and that is what he sees as its fundamental role. He is not in this state, so I have not discussed this with him, but I imagine that, if I put to him the evidence of what we are seeing the Rann Labor government doing in relation to WorkCover, I would invite him to say how it reflects on the ALP as a party of vision and values. He says:

Trade unions are the biggest non-government organisation in the country, with close to 2 million members. These members volunteer to be part of the union and make a financial commitment to the organisation. The reach and influence of a trade union movement is much wider than its paid up membership. During the Your Rights at Work campaign, trade union activists mobilised and politicised family members, friends and community members. The argument for increased union influence within the party is justified by - in particular, the movement's historical relationship with the ALP, also the membership base of the ALP and financial contributions to the party. The unions are also instrumental in the campaigning effectiveness of the party and the influence it exerts within the community. Doug Cameron says:

In particular, restoring a proper balance between the influence of big business and government and the needs of society is a major task of the trade union movement and party activists.

I think that is important in the context of the WorkCover debate because, really, what we are hearing from government is this fairly feeble line that, 'We do not like doing what we have to do, but the economy and business demand tough action, and it is tough action that we are taking.' So I think that does bring into question the fundamental principles of this party.

What I think brings those principles into question even more is an issue which I have raised here several times (and I am not going to go into it in detail now because we are on WorkCover) and which is reflected on by Doug Cameron when talking about the New South Wales Labor Party, when he says that the real crisis is the 'power, influence and reprehensible behaviour of local party officials and developers'; and he is particularly talking about Wollongong. He says:

These problems have not been the creation of the trade union movement. The influence of developers in the New South Wales ALP requires strong, decisive and effective leadership from the Premier and the party organisation. If ever there was a Gordian knot that needs to be cut, It is the relationship between the New South Wales ALP and developers.

It is only my commitment to be absolutely relevant to this debate that stops me going on to reflect even further on that relationship. Developers are bigger donors to the Labor Party than the trade union movement; and a consequence of that, I think, is the reaction that Labor now has to the union movement when it asks for something as simple as not cutting injured workers' entitlements.

Doug Cameron in his article does give some great historical context about the role that unions played in the formulation of the ALP, and I do not need to go into that history in any depth. He points out that the foundation of the federal parliamentary Labor Party in May 1901 was the product of several decades of experimentation by the Australian trade unions with various forms of political activity and that they finally settled on the Labor Party as the vehicle. It was the union movement's determination to wrest political power from employers that brought the ALP into existence, and trade union activists made up a majority of caucus in the early years. How the times have changed, and how the tables have been turned!

The formal relationship between the ACTU and the ALP came in 1927, and until about 1951 parliamentary leaders such as Watson, Fisher, Tudor, Charlton, Scullin, Curtin and Chifley moved from the shop floor to actually lead the Labor Party. As an aside, he notes, with some pride in his ancestry, that seven out of the 24 parliamentarians in the first Labor caucus were Scots immigrants.

The ultimate relationship between the ALP and the union movement is complex. Doug Cameron describes it as 'tense, tangled, ultimately strong and unbroken' Well, tense?

The Hon. A. Bressington: Not anymore!

The Hon. M. PARNELL: The Hon. Ann Bressington says, 'Not anymore!' It is still tense. Tangled? Yes, it is, with factional influence. Ultimately strong? We have to put a question mark over that. Unbroken? Well, we have seen it broken in the past couple of weeks and months — the vision of thousands of workers on the streets of Adelaide calling on the Premier to 'can his plan'. I will just conclude with one other sentence from Doug Cameron because we need to move on. He said:

The ALP must also be careful not to be seen solely as the safe, economically conservative managers of the economy. If managing the economy consumes the party to the exclusion of its capacity to build a society based on social justice, equity and real democracy, then the electorate can easily change one set of economic managers for another. This is the real threat to the ALP, not its historic and predominantly productive relationship with the union movement.

I think that he has put his finger on the button here as to why we are getting this WorkChoices legislation, that is, that the Labor Party has decided wrongly and against all the evidence (and we will get to that later) that it needs to be safe, economically conservative managers of the economy. If the only way that it can see to do that is to cut the entitlements of injured workers, the government has well and truly lost the plot.

The other interesting comparison between the Labor Party in New South Wales about which Doug Cameron was talking and the Labor Party here is how it has managed two different disputes that have a great many similarities. In South Australia it is the WorkCover issue (the bill we are debating now), and in New South Wales it is the issue of electricity privatisation. In New South Wales that is the Iemma government's agenda. Just as Premier Rann spoke out against the former Liberal government's privatisation of electricity, as opposition leader, Mr Rann spoke out about the former Liberal government's slashing of workers' rights to compensation if they are injured. We have a very yin and yang situation here, it is just that the names of the parties are being reversed.

Perhaps if there were still electricity assets to sell, we would see the Premier selling those as well. It is just that the other major party, the Liberals, got there first. In this WorkCover bill, even though the Liberals did get there first some years ago and they had their attack on workers' rights, Premier Rann is now having another go, and he is taking the axe to what the Liberals left behind. Premier Rann is selling the rights of workers' families. He is not selling electricity (there is nothing left to sell), but the rights of workers' families are there on the market. Just as Premier Iemma is privatising the electricity system in New South Wales, Premier Rann is privatising the pain, suffering and financial hardship that comes with many work injuries.

He is making it no-one's problem but the injured workers themselves. It is no problem for business anymore — not because the injuries have stopped, but because, under this bill, they will not have to pay the real costs of work injury anymore because this bill abolishes compensation for the real costs of workplace injury, and injured workers lose just that. The Premier is privatising the problem. He is telling injured workers, 'It's your private problem. Even though you were badly injured — perhaps by a grossly negligent employer — it is just your problem now. The employer does not have to pay the real costs of the injury anymore.'

I doubt that the injured workers who lose out will share the Premier's enthusiasm when the government tells them, 'We were the cheapest place for business in Australia, and we have made it even cheaper for business by telling them that they don't have to pay you full compensation anymore.' While there are many similarities between what is happening in New South Wales and the New South Wales government's power privatisation plan, there is one major difference, which I will come to in a second. On the ABC's Lateline program on 5 May, under the heading 'Iemma dangerously defiant over power privatisation', the presenter, Kerry O'Brien, said:

Labor's crisis in New South Wales, following a major rift at its state conference at the weekend which now threatens to split the party and the Iemma government. The unions and the rank and file overwhelmingly rejected Premier Morris Iemma's plan to privatise the state's electricity generators. Late yesterday the Premier defied his own party, announcing his government would push ahead with the sale anyway. For a leader whose popularity is at an all-time low, this unprecedented defiance of ALP policy may yet prove to be political suicide. Even more significantly, it's a clear signal of profound changes in the labour movement and the dwindling influence of unions in the Labor Party.

That is the similarity. The difference is that in New South Wales the Premier has said that he is prepared to sit down and consult with trade unions, but not in South Australia. Mike Rann has not followed that lead. There has been no discussion with the trade union movement over what to do about the Clayton WorkCover report; there has been no consultation on this legislation.

However, the major difference about the way in which the New South Wales government has handled power privatisation and the way this government is handling WorkCover is the absolute fear and panic by the Premier to shut down debate in the community, to avoid any scrutiny and to avoid, in particular, the internal democratic processes of the Australian Labor Party. It is obvious why the government is avoiding an open debate about this bill in Labor's own democratic forums, and that is because the government cannot win a debate on this bill because it is such a complete disaster for working families. The leaders of the Labor government know that, if they went through those democratic Labor Party processes, they would lose.

The other thing that some internal democracy might do, if the government was minded to do the right thing, is to make Labor Party members of parliament stand up and tell delegates what they stand for. Are they on Premier Rann's side or are they with the union movement and working families, all of whom are appalled at this disgraceful bill? The New South Wales government lost the vote on power privatisation by something like 700 to 100. Even though the Premier had ignored the Labor conference, at least in New South Wales there was some proper consultation with respect to the issue of WorkCover, but not here in South Australia. Premier Rann is so certain that his attack on workers' rights would be rejected at an ALP conference that he has gone into panic mode to make sure that there is no conference.

The question to the Premier is very simple: if the Premier claims that he is happy for there to be an ALP conference, why will he not let the people in the ALP who want to have a conference to debate a fundamental issue of workers rights have one? If he supports democracy, why will he not support them and make sure that there is a conference? The answer, of course, is that he will not allow democracy, because he already knows that he is turning his back on the Australian Labor Party with this WorkCover bill. This bill spits in the face of Labor values. It is an attack on the dearly held values and principles of the vast majority of people who participate in ALP forums, and the Premier knows it will be rejected and that he would be jeered and booed off the stage. So, he would rather not put himself in that situation.

The Hon. A. Bressington interjecting:

The Hon. M. PARNELL: As the Hon. Ann Bressington reminds me, some of the language we heard on the steps of Parliament House yesterday cannot be repeated here; it is unparliamentary. That is the ire that the Premier has raised in working South Australians. So, just like the New South Wales government and the New South Wales Labor Party on electricity privatisation, there could not be two more different positions on this bill than between the ALP and the government.

The news media, whether it is online or print, has been full of stories about this internal conflict between the leadership and the rank and file in New South Wales. One commentary (and I will not read much of it) by crikey.com, under the heading 'Caucus torn, conference resolute, Iemma powerless', states:

The weekend conference voted not once but twice to show its explicit rejection of the privatisation of the publicly owned energy industry. According to the ALP's rules, that gives all members—premiers, ministers, MPs and ex-premiers (Barrie Unsworth and Bob Carr included)—the clearest riding instructions. They must have no truck with private ownership of power — it is not an optional issue. Membership of the ALP is voluntary, but it carries the basic requirement that all members are bound by current party policy. Members who break ranks and oppose the platform are in violation of the party's rules and risk being reprimanded, suspended or expelled. Yet, this is the course that Iemma, Costa and a small minority of party members have chosen. Their status has been conflated by editorial writers from the Tory media, the big end of town, and a cheer squad of corporate lobbyists (including Bob Carr, who is now a valet at Macquarie Bank).

Crikey went on to report that the vote of 702 against electricity privatisation and 107 for means that it was not only the union delegates who were opposed to the sell off but that nearly three quarters of the branch delegates joined them. That can be no surprise, because just like the unions here want to protect workers rights so do regular rank and file ALP members, but not this government. I know because the number of people who have come up to me and said, 'I'm a member of the Labor Party, but I cannot stand what I see the Labor Party doing to my colleagues in the workplace, and potentially to me if I am injured'. Another comment on Crikey could just as easily apply in South Australia:

For be under no illusions: Labor in New South Wales is today in the midst of a serious crisis. It is not a matter of evil trade unions standing against a sensible and well-meaning Premier; branch members are just as opposed to electricity privatisation as is the industrial wing of the party. It is a clown of a Premier and his bullyboy Treasurer Michael Costa who, when insisting on getting their own way, are putting at risk the ability of ordinary members to have a say in what their party stands for. Why would anyone want to be what Kevin Rudd in his speech called `As the members of our party you are its heart and soul, its hands and feet if you are to have no influence on its mind'.

I will not labour these examples, but we can take them and replace the words 'New South Wales' with 'South Australia' and replace the issue of electricity privatisation with the issue of cuts to injured workers' entitlements.

In New South Wales there were four backbench MPs who spoke against that plan and said that Premier Iemma risked being a lame duck premier. We are told that there are a number of members of the Labor Party here who similarly have voiced their opposition. I would like them to voice their opposition during this debate — there is plenty of time.

The Hon. R.I. Lucas interjecting:

The Hon. M. PARNELL: As the Hon. Rob Lucas says, we have not heard a squeak yet. We had the Leader of the Government referring to things that look like ducks and swimming like ducks, but I want to hear what backbench members of the government have to say about the plan. The article further states:

If we weren't so hypocritical we would've just told the people of New South Wales what we were going to do before the election and then let the people of New South Wales make the decision, but we did not do that.

That was Mr Gibson — one of the four New South Wales Labor MPs who came out against the plan. He said, 'I believe that this vote isn't only about the privatisation of electricity; it's about the very future of this party because, if we can have anyone in the party, whether it be a premier, whether it be a treasurer, come in here and overrule party policy and platform, then we haven't got a party'. Again, we might just as well be talking about South Australia because under this Rann Labor government there is no ALP conference until it is a convenient time for the government, and that will be after we have concluded our debate on this bill.

The Hon. T.J. Stephens interjecting:

The Hon. M. PARNELL: As the Hon. Terry Stephens says, there will not be a conference until after the blood starts flowing. Well, the blood is flowing. Again, that is at the heart of the argy-bargy we have seen over the role of the upper house and the role of proper scrutiny. The government knows that, for every minute, hour or day this debate continues, the Labor Party is suffering pain, because people are seeing it for what it is. They joined, and they voted on the basis of the lofty principles in the charter and in the platform, and now they have been sorely let down.

My understanding was that the ALP State Conference was supposed to be held in March this year, but it seems that it has been delayed until August to avoid an embarrassing vote on the conference floor. At least Morris Iemma in New South Wales had the guts to go to a party conference, but that is not the case here.

I also understand from media reports that two days ago (on Monday evening, in fact) an emergency state ALP Executive meeting was called and that at that meeting Premier Rann seconded a motion to shut down internal democracy by cancelling a scheduled state council meeting and deferring it to some time in June. I think that meeting was going to be held tonight; it is now not going to be held until June.

One union leader who is never backwards in coming forward is Wayne Hanson from the Australian Workers' Union. He referred in media comments to this issue of the Premier not wanting to face the party on WorkCover. He said:

The Premier and his parliamentary colleagues are doing everything they possibly can to engineer a situation to ensure that the government is not embarrassed in this situation as far as WorkCover is concerned because it knows that, if it does have a public debate, then this bill will be voted down by the party at large.

I cannot say it any more clearly than that. So, that is the plan: avoiding internal voice over WorkCover. Time will tell, as this debate proceeds, whether any other tactics, parliamentary or otherwise, might be used to try to silence those who want to have a thorough debate on WorkCover.

I have referred to anecdotal material, but I want now to refer to some of some of the more formal and considered responses of the trade union movement to the WorkCover legislation. The first of the press releases I am aware of from SA Unions from this current era (that is, since we have known about the legislation) was back in February 2008. The SA Unions' media release, under the heading, 'Strong support for injured workers', states:

An independent survey has revealed the public wants injured workers to receive proper WorkCover support. SA Union Secretary Janet Giles says, 'Two out of three South Australians do not support cuts to workers' entitlements.'

I might just reflect on that figure: two out of three South Australians. Two out of three South Australians did not vote for the Labor Party in the upper house of state parliament; the most democratic house of parliament, with proportional representation; the house where you achieve the number of seats according to the proportion of the vote you receive, and we know that two-thirds of the people did not vote for the Labor Party.

So, that has to bring into question this idea of a mandate — the mandate that people voted for us; we have a majority in the lower house; therefore we can do whatever we want. No; the people of South Australia voted for a parliament; they voted for two houses of parliament. They voted for an upper house of parliament, and they exercised their choice to ensure that the crossbench had a deciding voice when it came to government influence.

Those of us who work here are very familiar with the numbers: eight Labor; eight Liberal; six crossbenchers. We have collectively the balance of power, but no one of us on the crossbenches has it in our own right — and that is not a bad thing. It means that we do work together; we form loose alliances. However, the one thing those on the crossbenches have in common is that we vote according to our conscience and we always try to do what is right. We will not be told what to do by faceless party bureaucrats.

However, the SA Unions' media release goes on:

[Janet Giles] says the state government will alienate voters if it caves in to business pressure to slash the WorkCover scheme.

I will not read her whole release, but she concludes by saying that South Australians want a fair deal for injured workers, and also:

We are heartened by the public's strong support for injured workers. There is widespread recognition that injured workers should not be further harmed by cuts to entitlements in order to satisfy the profit demands of the business lobby. Workers need support to rehabilitate and safely return to work and be productive again. It's apparent that people recognise slashing entitlements slows that process and ends up costing us more as a society. WorkCover is a crucial insurance policy for each and every South Australian who could potentially be injured at work. If it happens to you or your family, you want proper support to aid recovery. People don't want to be financially penalised in order to prop up business' bottom lines.

Later, on 26 February, under the heading 'Rann pulls a "Howard" on hurt workers', an SA Unions media release says:

Premier Mike Rann has abandoned any pretence of fairness and decency in sacrificing the rights of injured workers in order to prop up business profits...'This is a travesty' SA Unions secretary, Janet Giles says. 'Mike Rann risks being compared to John Howard by workers. He's stripping away their rights in order to appease the business lobby.'

As I mentioned before, the 'Your Rights at Work' T-shirts were prominent in the May Day rally on the weekend. Once the initial shock of this legislation had hit, the unions began to get more organised and, under the heading 'Unions unite to fight WorkCover attack', the SA Unions media release says:

A meeting of affiliate secretaries and officials unanimously supported SA Unions in coordinating a union campaign against the state government's unfair and ill-conceived legislation.

I know that a number of government members in this place still have strong connections to, or are still members of, those very unions who have agreed to form part of the campaign.

On 4 March, as details continued to emerge in relation to this plan, SA Unions pointed out in a press release that the 'WorkCover bill contains hidden nasties' (so we are now starting to get into the detail). The issue in that press release was one of retrospectivity, about whether these changes would apply to existing people on WorkCover. A quote from Janet Giles contained in the media release states:

Despite what the Premier says, it is our understanding that it is in fact retrospective for many workers. It means that, if this bill gets through in its current form, any worker injured for more than 2½ years would instantly have their support cut off. It is our opinion that this bill goes far further than the recommendations in the Clayton report. We are concerned by suggestions that this issue is being run by Deputy Premier, Kevin Foley, the chair of WorkCover, Bruce Carter, and a tranche of WorkCover lawyers, and that Premier Mike Rann may not have been properly debriefed.

The release goes on:

The original act is over 150 pages and the bill to amend the act is 75 pages. The amendments are complex and detailed. Even qualified Adelaide lawyers are currently spending days to properly examine the detail.

On that point, I would like to say that the complexity of this legislation is such that I have had probably six or seven experienced WorkCover lawyers contact me, offering to help to try to fully understand the legislation and help put together amendments to it.

Janet Giles concludes that release by saying:

The bill should be delayed in order for proper analysis, including the impact of any changes on injured workers. It is untenable that such a huge piece of detailed legislation is passed through the parliament without members of parliament, including the Premier, really understanding its implications.

That is why I get angry when I hear that we are not working hard and that we are somehow delaying the government's agenda. If I take my job as a member of parliament (as a Green) seriously, then I am going to insist that we look at this legislation properly. The alternative is that there will be no democracy and that whatever the government says goes, however unreasonable.

The public campaign by SA Unions over WorkCover was launched on 5 May. The release from that day states:

SA Unions today begins its public campaign in defence of WorkCover with the launch of radio advertising in Adelaide. The two advertisements feature a man and a woman speaking directly to Premier Mike Rann about the impact that his proposed WorkCover cuts would have on them and their families. The ads are the first in what will be a targeted advertising campaign that will run for the foreseeable future until the WorkCover debacle is resolved.

It is perhaps an open question as to when the WorkCover debacle will be resolved. At one level, it will be resolved in this parliament when the legislation, as it appears it must, eventually will be passed. However, I have said it will not be passed until we have given it thorough scrutiny.

Yesterday in the Legislative Council we showed that when it comes to the serious and organised crime bill we can do the job that we were elected to do; we can give legislation proper scrutiny. However, we need time to do that. None of us are super human; none of us have unlimited resources. None of us have resources anything like the minister or the departments have but we do our best. If a resolution is achieved in parliament I am sure that the campaign will not end there. The campaign will then move into a number of other phases, one of which must be further reform to try to remove the worst excesses of this legislation.

In relation to these radio advertisements the media release continues:

Their content mirrors feedback from the qualitative research commissioned by SA Unions to examine public attitudes and the potential impact of the government's bill. We know these are real. We know these are the real concerns of real people because that is what they have told us,' SA Unions secretary Janet Giles says. 'Mums are worried about the impact the cuts could have on their children. Dads are worried about their ability to provide for their families and make a safe return to work. For some, the spectre of being forced to sell their house, with rising interest rates and mortgage payments, is a very real possibility if they were injured and their WorkCover payments were slashed. WorkCover can be fixed without ripping support away from the injured,' Janet Giles says.

That, I think, is going to form a major part as we proceed with the debate: fixing WorkCover without slashing the entitlements of the people that WorkCover was set up to help.

The Hon. A. Bressington: And it can be done.

The Hon. M. PARNELL: As the Hon. Ann Bressington says, it can be done. In this parliament we will explore ways to do that as we go through the legislation. The media release states further:

'We urge Mr Rann to listen to the concerns of his constituency and negotiate a better way; a way that doesn't kick a worker in the guts while they're down, yet deliver a bonus to business,' Ms Giles says. 'The first step ought to be a proper analysis of the bill and constructive cooperation with the union movement to achieve a fair solution. Under these changes, WorkCover will not be the most generous scheme in the country as the government claims, nor will people currently on WorkCover be spared from the changes, as the government is also claiming. There is a better way, ' Ms Giles says.

Just reflecting on that, it would have made our job in this parliament an awful lot easier if the bill that was presented to us was one that had been through those negotiations and had the support of the union movement and the support of those who represent injured workers. If we had been presented with a compromise we might still have needed to argue about a few little points here and there but the work would have been done. The work would have been done in the community around the negotiating table, rather than it having to be done by the 22 members of the Legislative Council.

On 30 March the unions called for an inquiry into the WorkCover rehabilitation industry. In a media release dated 30 March 2008, SA Unions secretary Janet Giles said:

'It will tell the influential Industrial Relations Society that the real problem with WorkCover is the rehabilitation industry.' Ms Giles has been invited to address IR Society members, including leading lawyers, judges, and industrial relations commissioners at a breakfast symposium on 31 March. It comes on the eve of a CFMEU rally at Parliament House on Tuesday, 1 April, the first in a series of actions leading up to a community rally on 3 May.

I remember that rally on April Fools' Day (1 April). I do not think I have ever seen workers as angry with the people who have, until now, been regarded as their political representatives. There was unparliamentary language, which I will not repeat here, but it was accurate.

In relation to the call for an enquiry into the rehabilitation industry, this media release states:

'We want a system that actively promotes swift, safe return to work. That requires an overhaul of rehabilitation and a better system than one that encourages employers to drag things out so they can wash their hands of responsibility after a couple of years. That's why we're rallying; why we are lobbying; why we have the backing of the community, and we won't stop until we achieve genuine fairness,' Ms Giles says.

The concern in this campaign against this legislation then switched to the tactics that the government appeared to be using to force the legislation through. Regarding the day on which the CFMEU members were rallying on the steps in front of this building, the release states:

'SA Unions has warned the government not to gag debate on its controversial WorkCover legislation by guillotining it through the lower house. We will be watching this law like a hawk, especially given the latest bit of extremism from Business SA and its blatantly excessive ambit claim of amendments,' SA Unions secretary Janet Giles says.

Janet Giles continues:

Mike Rann is supping with the devil. He's sat at the table with Business SA and tried to satisfy their appetite—and now they want even more. He must put an end to the business gluttony and ensure working families aren't starved. It's been suggested to us that the government may try to shut down debate and push it through the Lower House with minimal scrutiny. If that's the plan, then they ought to think again. Such a sneaky tactic would provoke widespread community outrage and intensify the union-driven campaign for a fair fix to WorkCover.

I am nervous that we might not get the opportunity to give the debate the thoroughness it deserves. We have managed to get through the second reading contributions pretty well, although a couple of members are still to speak. However, we need to ensure that we do this debate properly. It did not take very long in the lower house because really only one member of parliament was prepared to stand up and defend the rights of injured workers. The member for Mitchell was pretty much a lone voice, and he could not get support from parliamentary colleagues to thoroughly scrutinise the legislation. They did what they could, but the real debate was always going to be in the upper house.

According to this media release, the unions' warning came as the first of the rallies was held on 1 April, because it marked the resumption of parliament and the consideration of the WorkCover bill. Janet Giles said:

Today's rally of CFMEU members and their supporters is a taste of what's to come. These are the people who work in arguably the most dangerous jobs in our state and who have the highest levels of death and injury. They absolutely need a fair WorkCover system. What's more, they deserve it. They're putting their lives on the line only to see their support kicked out from under them by government MPs with the luxury of a limitless compo scheme.

The debate and the analysis of the legislation continued through April, but the additional information available to SA Unions was a range of amendments which the government proposed and which it claimed would fix up the system. On 2 April, SA Unions said:

The state government amendments to its controversial WorkCover legislation have served to tip the scales further in favour of employers.

So, according to the unions, it had the opposite effect, as follows:

SA Unions Secretary, Janet Giles, has disputed the Industrial Relations Minister's suggestion that the amendments were achieved through discussion with unions and business.

'These changes are manifestly inadequate and show that our concerns are falling on deaf ears. We have put comprehensive proposals to the government in the past 2 weeks, yet none of yesterday's amendments reflected the union position.'

'These changes are a stunt that proves the much vaunted negotiations were a sham. The amendments are merely an attempt to make Minister Wright appear reasonable, while distracting the public from our highly effective campaign.'

'Minister Wright's subsequent comments that this is his final position have exposed a government determined to attack injured workers by cutting their pay and stripping away their rights, while at the same time delivering a financial windfall to employers.'

'Mike Rann has lost the right to claim he's a Premier who represents the interests of working families,' Ms Giles says.

I am indebted to SA Unions because it has gone through in some detail the effect that the April Fool's Day amendments have on this legislation. For example, one amendment reduced weekly payments to 90 per cent of the salary after 13 weeks and to 80 per cent after 26 weeks. This was a slight modification of the original proposal but, as SA Unions pointed out, its implication was that a worker on minimum pay would still earn less than the national minimum wage because in this system there is no safety net or floor below which an injured worker cannot go. The verdict was that it was still bad for injured workers.

Another amendment introduced at that time related to the allocation of $15 million for a return-to-work fund. The response of the unions was that this was not new, that it was one of the Clayton recommendations and that it was not what the unions had asked for, namely, a discrete fund for retraining. I mentioned before that John Camillo has been consistent in his call for more effort to be made in the area of retraining.

This $15 million will be dissipated with the rehabilitation, promotion and information for business campaigns, etc. It will not solve the problem that workers who are injured can only go back to a different job if they can access the training to do so. The verdict on that amendment was that it was a window-dressing amendment and that it would not solve the problem.

The government also announced that there would be more powers for the WorkCover Ombudsman. Again, the response was that it would be window-dressing and, in fact, no better for workers. Another reform retained the 7.5 per cent levy cap instead of the proposed 15 per cent. We know that the government is keen to keep average rates low and, in fact, lower them, and that is the present in this — to lower them. However, in terms of the upper end of the cap, the proposal was 15 per cent, and it is being retained at 7.5 per cent. So, what are the implications of this?

The implications are that it will reward the most dangerous employers who injure and kill people. It was one of the only parts of the bill that put pressure on employers to make workplaces safer. This is a disgrace, when the bill already hugely favours employers. The SA Unions' verdict from these changes was that it was good for bosses — another benefit for bosses which does not help workers: it is a reward for bad behaviour.

Another reform that was introduced at that time was increased notice for ceasing payments and other penalties from seven days to 14 days, that is, to increase the notice period. The assessment of that is that currently the period is 21 days' notice, so it is still a significant reduction in the time for families to readjust to loss of income and changes in their circumstances. Verdict: it is bad for workers.

I will not go through every one of the amendments, but there are another couple I want to refer to. There was some clarification of this issue of medical questions that will be referred to medical panels. I know from the representations I have received that this is one of the major concerns that lawyers have with this, and I have had representations from many lawyers and legal groups saying the medical panels are a major problem. So there was some clarification in these amendments, but do they do the job? The assessment is that more detail needs to be seen, but the real fear is doctors determining inappropriate questions (and we have to deal with that), and it does not seem to stop the lack of justice for workers who would still not be able to appeal any decision of the medical panel. It is a question of whether it is the right body to be making the decisions and, regardless of the answer, if it makes the wrong decision, can anyone do anything about it? Can anyone challenge it? The verdict was that these reforms were slightly better, but the whole concept of medical panels is still bad for workers.

There was a proposal in the original legislation that was withdrawn in these 1 April amendments, and the government said that it was not proceeding with the proposal to provide lump sum payments for stress injury. The verdict on that is that one of the few beneficial changes for workers in the bill is knocked out due to pressure from business. So, it was a negative change. This means that stressed, injured workers continue not to be able to have their injuries compensated through a lump sum payment. The verdict is that it is bad for workers.

The government also clarified, in amendments, that the levy would be GST-free so that employers would not have to pay GST on the levy. This was a request by the employers, and it was granted — so, effectively, there is another reward to employers, at the expense of the unfunded liability and at the expense of injured workers. I will not go through the rest of them, because in the committee stage we will go through the bill as it currently stands, but there were a number of amendments, none of which satisfied the union movement.

On 4 April, SA Unions put out a release under the heading 'Injured workers shouldn't pay for the world's problems', and it states:

SA Unions secretary Janet Giles says it is entirely unfair to expect injured workers to pay for the impact of world financial markets on the WorkCover scheme.

The quote from her is:

Workers don't ask to be injured and they deserve fair support when they are. Yet the government is now arguing that WorkCover's worsening financial situation as a result of world money market woes further justifies its controversial legislation which strips workers of their rights. Why should vulnerable workers have to pay for a problem with the world markets? Why should they have to pay for mismanagement of the WorkCover scheme? Why should they have to pay for the failure of employers to do the right thing and get them back to work?

We will have to explore that issue in some detail later, because it goes to the heart of the unfunded liability which, as people now appreciate, is an actuarial estimation and there is a wide range of factors that go to determining what that number might be. It is slightly better than having a figure plucked out of thin air, but it goes so far into the future that there is a lot of guesswork, and I have seen estimates from people who are knowledgeable about these things that it is currently grossly overstated. It might not seem important whether it is $1 billion or $800 million — people will say, 'It is still a problem' — but, given that the primary agenda of the government appears to be reducing the unfunded liability, I think it is important for us to know whether we are taking $1 billion or some amount less than that out of the hands of injured workers and giving it to the bosses. It is important to get those figures right.

There was an attempt, again, by SA Unions to try to work with the Labor Party, even as advanced as these proposals were, as we are getting into April. The unions are still trying to work within their own circles: they are trying to work with their political colleagues in the Labor Party to try to get an audience and some resolution. A release from SA Unions on 8 April under the heading 'WorkCover gag. Beware the guillotine' states:

Today SA Unions was invited to brief members of the ALP caucus prior to the caucus meeting. Caucus members then requested that we be heard by the full caucus meeting, but this was an exercise in futility. A motion to caucus that the unions be heard was stymied by the Premier.

So, even within their own circles, there was not that opportunity for members of the Labor caucus to hear the message. I held a briefing and, again, not many turned up, so I will put on the record a bit later what members should have heard at that briefing. The release goes on to say:

SA Unions secretary Janet Giles says it shows an increasingly authoritarian Premier who has lost his way in relation to Labor values and the needs of the working families he purports to represent.

On the one hand unions were gagged and on the other hand senior members were deaf to reason despite this being probably the most challenging test confronting the ALP since it took office.

The unions in this campaign did not lose sight, and they have not lost sight, of the objective of trying to make sure that injured workers are looked after. If injured workers are not looked after properly by the WorkCover scheme, the unions, I think quite rightly, have looked to how else we can make sure that we do not send these injured workers below minimum wages and below the poverty line and have them miss out on their just compensation. On 9 April, the unions announced that they would use other methods to seek make-up pay for the WorkCover shortfall. The release states:

Some of South Australia's largest and most powerful unions will flex their industrial muscle to ensure their members are not short-changed by the state government's controversial changes to WorkCover. The Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, the National Union of Workers, the Australian Workers Union and the Australian Education Union will seek make-up pay if there are cuts to WorkCover entitlements.

SA Unions' Secretary, Janet Giles, says, 'Unions are determined that workers injured through no fault of their own are not financially penalised. These four unions will seek clauses in their enterprise agreements compelling employers to cover the gap between wages and WorkCover payments for injured workers. This is especially pertinent for the AEU which is presently negotiating its new agreement with the Rann state government. Employers should think very carefully about their support for the Rann government's bill, because if it proceeds in its current form we'll be demanding that employers make-up for workers' lost entitlements. This would cost them considerably more than the reduction in their WorkCover levies. So if the state government pushes ahead with plans to slash workers' pay by 90 per cent or 80 per cent, business will be charged the difference', Mrs Giles said.

'It is a shame it has come to this. We know that it is possible to fix WorkCover's finances without hurting injured workers. Make-up pay is not our preferred option, but if that's what's required to protect injured workers and their families from being financially bludgeoned by this government, then so be it. And don't think that we can't do it. The precedent has been set interstate, particularly in Victoria. Unions there won the right to make-up pay as a result of former premier Jeff Kennett's attack on their workers compensation scheme. If Mike Rann wants to model himself on Jeff Kennett, then he has to expect a similar response here. We have conservatively estimated that if make-up pay was to be applied to people currently on WorkCover it would cost business $260 million, and that's on top of their WorkCover levies. These four unions will be amongst the first to seek make-up pay clauses in the agreements if the government proceeds with its retrograde and unfair WorkCover legislation, but they won't be the last' she says.

Meanwhile, we remind the government that we remain ever prepared to negotiate a new fair solution that fixes WorkCover's finances without further hurting injured workers. We know there's a reasonable solution. All that's required is reason on the part of government.

I must admit that I see the patience of a saint in these releases — to be calling day after day for the right to be heard, to sit down and to negotiate, but to be stymied at every step. There are parallels, I guess, with this concept of make-up pay with cuts that were made over many years to Medicare and to our medical insurance scheme. In the early days it was said, 'Yes, everyone will have all their medical costs covered'; but as the scheme is eroded people have to start looking at alternative ways to make up the gap. You go to the doctor now and, unless your doctor bulk bills, you still have to hand over cash — a very similar situation here.

We will end up with maybe a rump of WorkCover, and then entitlements having to be negotiated through other mechanisms, such as make-up pay, with employers needing separate insurance policies. It is not just SA Unions as the peak body that has waded into this debate. A range of other workers' organisations and other unions have come out very strongly against this legislation. For example, the AMWU, in a press release on 17 April 2008 under the heading 'Injured workers must not be disadvantaged', said:

Workers in South Australia are at risk of losing entitlements under the SA WorkCover scheme and the AMWU is not happy. In a move that has angered many people in South Australia, the government wants to cut workers' weekly payments by 20 per cent or they are off work through a work-related injury.

That has since been modified to a two-step process: 10 per cent, and then 20 per cent, but the 20 per cent is still there. The press release continues:

The AMWU has been leading the wider union campaign against the state government's move to reduce injured workers' weekly payments. Now the union has declared it will go after employers to make up the loss in earnings. AMWU's South Australian Secretary, John Camillo, says that the government's solution to the problem of the unfunded liability (to the tune of $800 million) is unfair to workers. Cutting workers' entitlements is punishing them for being injured. People who are injured at work do not deserve a cut in their pay and do not deserve to be put under financial pressure. Mr Camillo claims that the independent consultant employed by the government to look into solving the unfunded liability issue, Alan Clayton, did not give enough weight to the union submissions. The AMWU worked extremely hard to put in a submission which seems to have been ignored, as have all the unions. The unions asked for $30 million to be put aside for retraining long-term injured workers —

as we saw, we had only $15 million, and it was not directed to that role —

That is about 3 per cent of the amount that WorkCover receives from employers every year and we need to do something to retrain long-term injured workers who can't get back to work in order to reduce the unfunded liability. The government has agreed to half the amount. But Mr Camillo said the money will not be effective unless there is something in the legislation that compels employers to act on rehabilitating workers.

Mr Camillo said the AMWU is also angry about the government's plans to award employers who report workplace injuries early. Having a reward for employers in a bill which punishes workers for having the misfortune of being injured on the job is totally unfair. Mr Camillo says unions will not stand by and allow workers to lose their entitlements. We intend to seek enterprise agreements that compel employers to cover the gap between wages and any WorkCover payments for injured workers.

I think it is remarkable when in legislation we provide benefits to people for obeying the law rather than penalising them for breaking the law. I think it brings the law into disrepute when we start to go down that path.

One union that represents many people in the lower wage brackets, people who are very often casually employed, is the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers' Union. On 4 April, the union came out with a statement, and I note that it also had half-page advertisements in the newspapers. The union stated:

Mike Rann has introduced changes to WorkCover that will slash injured workers' pay and significantly reduce their rights. At the same time, he wants to make WorkCover cheaper for employers.

It goes through some of the key changes, in particular, reducing injured workers' wages after just 13 weeks, restricting entitlements of workers with permanent disabilities and kicking injured workers off the scheme after 2½ years. Anyone can be injured at work. No-one asks to be injured, and that is why we need a fair system that helps injured workers to recover. We want safer workplaces and a system that gets injured workers back to work fairly and safely.

I believe that we should be grasping tight those areas where we have agreement, and everyone agrees that the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers' Union's statement is what we should be aiming at: getting injured workers back to work, treating them fairly and making sure that their return to work is safe, rather than starving people back to work and having them go back prematurely.

Another union that has come out very strongly against these changes, the Public Service Association, is a most important union, because it represents people who work for us; people who work in our service sectors, whether it be prisons, national parks or hospitals, or wherever. In a release very soon after this legislation was announced, the PSA stated:

Media reports suggest that the government is considering cutting WorkCover benefits to injured workers.

Well, that is an understatement. It was not media reports suggesting it: it was happening. The release continued:

The PSA is completely opposed to any reductions in benefits. Workers do not choose to be injured and should not suffer further injury through pay loss. The media reports arise from the Clayton Walsh review, established by the government in 2007, to recommend changes to the WorkCover legislation. This follows proposals by the WorkCover board to reduce the corporation's financial pressures by savagely reducing benefits. Cutting benefits to workers is a knee-jerk reaction that inevitably arises when financial questions are raised about workers compensation.

I think that is an important comment. I will come back to this matter later, because the unfunded liability reflects a number of things. There is money in; there is money out. If money in and money out do not look to be adding up, you can say, 'Well, how do we deal with that? Do we reduce the number of people who are entitled to take money out? Do we reduce the amount that each person receives who is entitled to take money out? Do we put more money in? Do we try to make the pie bigger? Do we try to modify the types of payments we make to people, in terms of continual payments through weekly payments, or do we look at redemptions? Do we look at lump sums?' The formula is absolutely complex but, at the end of the day, it comes back to that simple 'money in and money out'.

The government's solution is to attack both sides of the equation. It wants less money in because it is going to collect fewer premiums: it wants less money out because it is going to cut the workers' entitlements. The PSA release concludes:

South Australian workers deserve a more effective, better workers compensation scheme, better focused on return-to-work programs. This would improve the system's financial situation and provide better support for injured workers.

I could (but I will not) go through a number of other press releases that a range of unions have issued. I think I have covered the key points. It is no disrespect to the other unions that their voices have not been heard. Through the vehicle of SA Unions, I can assure them that the Greens at least have heard what it is they have to say.

On 18 February, when these changes were announced, the Secretary of SA Unions, Janet Giles, was put in a very difficult position. She was on the WorkCover board and she had to decide whether she would continue in that role or whether she would take the role more appropriate to her office, that is, to stand up for the rights of workers. She inevitably chose the latter role and resigned from the WorkCover board. She made a brief statement to announce her resignation to the community, and I think it is important that that statement is placed on the record of this parliament. Janet Giles said:

Today I delivered a letter to Michael Wright, minister of industrial relations, submitting my resignation from the WorkCover board. The reason for my resignation is that as a board member I am unable to comment publicly on any matter in relation to WorkCover. This puts me in a conflict with my position as Secretary of SA Unions, which is to publicly advocate and lead campaigns for the rights of working people in our state.

Over the last five years the union movement has actively and positively participated on the board in order to address issues facing the WorkCover scheme. We supported a number of changes to the operation and management of the scheme, which we believe have set the right direction for the difficult job of turning the scheme around after a decade of mismanagement by the previous Liberal government and senior WorkCover officials. These changes included replacement of nearly all the senior staff, including the appointment of a new CEO; development of a strategic plan that was linked to outcomes; reviewing major parts of the scheme's operations, such as medical costs, self-insured employers and rehabilitation; employing one legal firm at a significantly reduced cost; and, rewriting a more accountable contract for the agent, including employing one agent, EML, rather than the previous four agents.

She goes on:

Because of the huge task at hand, these changes only started to take effect in March 2006. The scheme is now on track to be fully funded by 2013. It is a big and complex business and will take some time to turn around.

I will pause there because that begs one of the most important questions in this debate. If changes have been put in place, which a member of the WorkCover board believes were on track to lead to an improvement in the funding situation, why on earth are we rushing through with this legislation rather than perhaps tweaking those changes a little and giving them a chance to have some effect?

The Chicken Little 'sky is falling' attitude of the government that, if we do not pass this legislation, today, tomorrow or Mothers Day (as I think the Premier wants us to sit) somehow it will be a disaster for this state. I will not be bluffed or bullied into believing that the sky is falling. Yes, there are problems we have to deal with, but to suggest that if this legislation is not passed immediately it will be all rack and ruin is laughable. Janet Giles' resignation release goes on to say:

The rush by the board to recommend significant changes to injured workers' income and entitlements in an attempt to starve them back to work came out of the blue and was strongly opposed by the union representatives who produced a minority report to the minister in 2007. I believe the push for cuts to workers' entitlements is largely driven by the business lobby in order to reduce their WorkCover levy payments at the expense of injured workers. The recommendations of the board shift the blame and pain directly onto the injured workers and at the same time give employers a financial windfall. This is unfair and unbalanced and in our view contrary to the objectives of the Workers Compensation Act.

It is easy in this debate to lose sight of the objectives of the act. This is a system for injured workers to help them get back to work and compensate them for the time they are off work or if they are unable to work again. The statement continues:

For example, the board recommends a worker on the minimum wage have their gross weekly wage of $522.15 cut immediately to $496 as soon as they are injured, and then to $391.60 if they have not recovered after 13 weeks. No family can survive on this money, especially one with the extra strain of living with a work injury. In addition, a worker would have their income cut completely if they challenge a decision about their workers compensation claim.

I want to return to that issue later: the idea of someone having the temerity to challenge a decision and then having that used against them to cut their pay. She continues:

Unions in SA have met and determined that we will publicly campaign to ensure that working people in South Australia are protected when they are injured but also are returned to work safely as well as quickly. We call on the state Labor government to remember their core values of representing the interests of working people in our state and not support a reduction in injured workers entitlements. There are other ways to improve the return to work rate, in effective and humane ways which address the behaviour and practice of employers, service providers, WorkCover management and the agent. These should be explored by the state government rather than rushing to blame injured workers. We are willing to assist in this work. Unions in South Australia have successfully campaigned for the last three years to protect workers rights against a hostile federal government. We will be disappointed if now we are forced to campaign against our state Labor government to protect the rights of injured workers, but if we need to we will.

Clearly, that is exactly what the unions have been doing. It did it on 1 April on the steps of Parliament House with the CFMEU; it did it on May Day and at the rally on the weekend following May Day.

When something as important to South Australia as the resignation of a high profile person from an important public position occurs, it is reported widely in the news. I will not go through all the news reports and the reaction to Janet Giles retirement from the WorkCover Board because I am conscious that I have been telling the Legislative Council the views of peak bodies.

I have referred to the views of SA Unions and to other unions, but I have not referred to the reaction of ordinary people, ordinary workers, to these events. When Janet Giles resigned from the WorkCover Board a number of the online commentary websites started to fill up with public reaction. A range of comments was posted. For example, Joanna Vaughan, who writes for The Advertiser, reported it in both the newspaper and on line and some of the responses people made (I won't read all of them as there were many) were as follows:

Congratulations to Janet Giles for stepping out of the circle of greed constantly demonstrated by the employer and acknowledging that injured workers are not getting true value of care and financial support after they have been injured at work. There are many workers who are injured seriously and will never work again and, yes, there are those workers who attempt to 'rort' the system, thus giving genuine receivers of compensation a bad image. It is not this, however, that needs to be addressed but the imbalance of the system that is unfair, and this is what Janet Giles is demonstrating about.

It concludes:

Well done, Janet Giles, for standing up and being counted for an issue that so many are prepared to just sweep under the carpet. Blame the injured workers when, in the first place, it was not their fault they are in the position. Yes, Mr Rann, it will do some of your overweight ministers to take a 20 per cent cut, not just freeze what they have now and say what a good job the government is doing in controlling the state's economy and how responsible government is acting in this manner. Who are you trying to fool? Certainly not the true injured workers who from the day they were rushed into hospital with a life-threatening injury and have suffered financially and medically ever since, and now you want to make them bleed more. Mr Rann, there is no more blood left, but there is plenty of spine left, just ask Janet Giles.

I do find that the stream of consciousness that one gets on these websites shows that the responses are truly from the heart. It is often difficult to make out exactly what it is they are saying, but the sentiment is absolutely clear. Another comment is as follows:

Good onya, Janet. If you cannot abide by the politically motivated rules governing WorkCover, go out and help the poor buggers who are injured and have no income. The Rann-led Labor Party here in South Oz is getting arrogant and becoming ignorant to real people's needs, as did Howard's Liberals... 'is it time for a change of leadership of the Labor Party?

That is the question. Another comment states:

This is a real case of kicking people while they are down. Good on you, Janet, for making a stand. It's a pity the rest will not join you. As for those who get hurt at work, make sure you take all you're entitled to. As for you, Mr Rann, I hope you never need WorkCover.

Another comment states:

Well done, Janet. Congratulations to Janet Giles for quitting the WorkCover Board.

The final comment I will read states:

It is good to see Janet acting on the integrity of her position as a representative of South Australian workers. Regrettably, the ones who should be resigning from the WorkCover Board but who won't are those with the vested interests in aspects of the industry, together with Business SA representative, whose only mission seems to be to sink the compo raft that helps keep injured workers afloat during soul-destroying times that they are out of work and at the mercy of the system. Why do we still not have an independent commission against corruption to investigate the stench that hangs over WorkCover's $1.5 billion in foreign investments? I'd like to know where that card sits in the house of cards that is the international financial crisis.

Well, I am not even going to go there; that is a whole new can of worms, but I do mention that a common sentiment that is coming out is why injured workers should pay for the international financial crisis.

I urge honourable members to go on line if they want to see the depth of feeling. There is a range of blog sites where injured workers are having their say. I put a note on one of those blog sites inviting injured workers to write to me with their stories, and I said that I would refer to those stories in parliament, and I will do that, as we proceed through this debate, because no-one else is doing it. No-one else is putting the human face to this debate. The debate, whilst it focuses on unfunded liabilities, claims managers and administration, is at great risk of forgetting the ordinary South Australians who need extraordinary help because they were unfortunate enough to be injured at work.

I invited all members of the Legislative Council to be part of a briefing on WorkCover as this debate progressed, and I did it on 1 April, just after the CFMEU rally had been held. When we look at how long we have been engaging in this, we were talking about the bill even before it got to the upper house. We pre-empted that we would get it; that is the way in which parliament works. I do not want anyone to say that we sat on our hands and that we were not interested. We were working on this bill before it even got into this chamber and, if that is not giving deference to the government's legislative agenda, I do not know what is. We have worked very, very hard to make sure that we are in a position now to debate this bill fully.

I was disappointed that very few members of the Legislative Council chose to attend that briefing. Had they attended the briefing, they would have been given a different perspective on the WorkCover situation from the one they have been getting through the government's spin, which is all about unfunded liabilities and the ruin and destruction that will occur to the state economy if we do not cut the entitlements of injured workers.

I want to refer to some of the remarks that were made at that briefing, because honourable members were not there to hear it. Honourable members might think, 'Well, we choose what briefings we attend and, if we were not there, it was because we didn't care to be there.' However, I still want to make sure that the record shows what was said on that day.

There were a range of speakers. Janet Giles (and, again, I am not picking on her but I am emphasising her) was invited to present the position of SA Unions, and she put a lot of effort into succinctly summarising what the issues are for unions. I want to make sure that the record shows what she said on 1 April. Janet said:

I speak this morning as a union official. I am not a lawyer and nor is it one of my ambitions to be one —

to which I would say that being a lawyer can be a fine profession, and some of us have found it very rewarding —

Therefore I will address the current debate about proposed legislative change from the perspective of one who speaks for workers, defends the rights of people with little power and believes that industrial law should be there to provide balance and fairness in a world of work where employers have significantly more power than individual workers.

Our system of workers compensation was introduced to do two things. Firstly to provide support for workers who are injured at work to recover from that injury in a safe and supported way and return to work with minimum disruption to them or their workplace, and secondly to provide financial compensation to workers who have lost physical and psychological capacity due to being injured at work. At the same time our OHSW law makes it clear that it is the employer's responsibility to ensure that workplaces are safe both through ensuring the safety of their workers but also ensuring processes for workers to raise safety concerns, refuse unsafe work and have their issues addressed. One goes with the other. In order for a workers compensation system to work effectively we also need a strong OHS act with severe penalties for those who put workers in danger of injury and death.

The union movement has historically worked to get these laws in place. Even back in the very early days of the development of South Australia it was the tailoresses' union, including people like Augusta Zadow, who pushed for the inquiry into the sweatshop conditions of the textile industry and then lobbied for setting up of the very first industrial and safety inspectorate and laws to govern these.

As an aside, just yesterday we rejected (I think quite properly) a move to disallow regulations that affect outworkers, that affect those vulnerable, often newly arrived migrants who are exploited in a home work environment. I had not realised that it was those tailoresses who were at the forefront of this debate way back then. Janet continued:

On the other side, employers have constantly lobbied to reduce their industrial obligations to their workers and there has been a powerful lobby both here and nationally to weaken the obligations on employers in relation to safety as well as make it easier to just get rid of workers once they are injured.

In 2002 when the Rann Labor government was elected, they inherited a workers compensation system which was the victim of this political lobbying and it was not in good shape. When the system was first designed through a good process of discussions between unions, employers and government it did work. It did provide the support and security that injured workers needed. It did ensure employers met their obligations and it was also financially viable.

The messing around with the law over the years by politicians through the process of ideologically-driven posturing and lobbying left a legacy. The outsourcing of claims management because of the belief that the private market was more efficient led to a competitive insurance culture and in a small market like South Australia led to the danger of relationships that were far too close and a culture of lack of accountability. The introduction of redemptions into the system led to a lump sum culture and the changing of WorkCover to a corporate entity severed its connection to the parliament and undermined the ability for public scrutiny.

At the same time the OHS act was not used properly for many years by the previous Liberal government in the way it was intended. There were almost no prosecutions of employers during this time and the penalties in the act were embarrassingly low.

In Labor coming to power, the minister of industrial relations, Michael Wright, established three major reviews looking at three planks of our industrial framework — industrial relations, OHS and workers compensation. The first two were used as the basis for development of an overhaul of the legal framework and are now modern, effective and balanced laws. This was not done for the workers compensation system. The minister instead appointed a new board and gave them the job of making the system work more effectively, including dealing with the funding ratio which was badly affected by a political decision of the previous government to reduce the levy for employers. This single act sent the scheme financially backward.

The board was keen to help and took on the challenge in a bipartisan, constructive way by putting in place a large number of changes very quickly which had positive outcomes. We set our goal on being fully funded by 2013 and set about shifting the culture of the corporation to return to work and building accountability for this with every organisation we have contracts with.

Then last year something happened. I am still unclear about the trigger (my guess is that it was a realisation that it would be impossible to reduce employer levies for some time) but there was a sudden panic and push which led to a shift from looking at all aspects of the scheme and their interaction to a focus just on the injured worker as the problem and the need to change legislation to get people off the scheme. And let's be clear that this is the purpose of the amendment bill, not a focus on return to work (in fact there is very little research anywhere in Australia that compares return to work rates around the country, the only comparative numbers relate to getting people off the workers comp scheme).

This panic in my view did a number of things. Firstly it stopped the focus which was beginning to have effect in examining the internal workings of the scheme. Secondly it stopped the agent focusing on improving their own practice and allowed them to blame the legislation and the injured worker. They began to focus heavily on the funding position of the scheme as an agent priority. We even had injured workers reporting that their claims managers were justifying their unreasonable behaviour by saying their job was to reduce the unfunded liability. Thirdly, it created immediate conflict on the board even to the extent that when a report was made to the minister the union representatives refused to endorse the report and instead provided a minority report to the minister. A divided board is not conducive to considered and constructive management of a scheme. My fear was that there was at this time external pressures on the board which were not made explicit.

As they say, the rest is history. We now have a bill in parliament that has had no input from unions who represent injured workers and no input from legal experts who work in this area or from the community as a whole; and the worst-case scenario is that the bill could be passed through the parliament unamended by early June.

Why would this be a problem? First, the false premise behind the drafting of the bill is that injured workers are the problem because they do not want to go back to work and, therefore, the legislation needs to be designed to force them back to work or set a culture of fear that if they do not return they will be penalised. Cutting workers' pay to 80 per cent after 13 weeks will only serve to add financial stress to people who are already in pain and dealing with an injury recovery. Although most people do return to work before 13 weeks, it is common for there to be issues of timing of appointments for specialists and complications to the injury which cause delays outside the control of the worker.

If someone is on minimum pay the implications of this change would be to pay them lower than the national minimum wage. This change will result in a very small saving to the scheme of around $22 million, yet will cause so much distress. The impact of cutting people off the scheme after 2½ years is a very blunt instrument which is designed to be retrospective for all workers currently on the scheme, and force them off payments regardless of whether they are better. Nothing in the bill builds a better work review test or legislates for earlier fair resolution.

To discourage people not to pursue disputes by suspending their pay if they raise matters with the tribunal (with no equivalent penalty on employers) is very much based on a false assumption that workers are vexatious when they dispute decisions around their claims. Setting up medical panels is very likely to significantly reduce the acceptance of claims through a closed-shop approach to medical decisions about injuries in the interests of the financial position of the scheme, and the interests of employers rather than the injured worker.

All of these changes in the bill set a culture which actively dissuades people from making a claim and using the workers comp scheme as it was intended. They act against the support required to get people back to work. They are designed to focus on the injured worker and shift them from the state-funded workers comp scheme and onto the federal social security scheme. Secondly, there is no legislative incentive in this bill to encourage employers to do the right thing or penalise them when they do not. In a number of areas, the onus of proof is shifted to the worker. Also, a number of provisions under the current act are shifted by the bill to being set by WorkCover policy rather than by legislation and regulation, giving less public scrutiny and democratic control—something that recent experience would tell us favours employers rather than workers.

In the bill there is a weakening of the obligations for employers to find suitable work, as well as a weakening of the definition of suitable work, making it easier for employers to actively get rid of injured workers by providing them with unsavoury jobs. The proposed changes to the work capacity review at 2½ years, in practice, would provide no incentive for employers to get people better and back to work. It could work against the health of the scheme, because employers could do nothing and just wait the time out, knowing that they would have no obligation after this.

The opposition to the reintroduction of common law rights also means that there are savings for employers just by the removal of workers' entitlements. In Victoria, where the entitlements are similar to those in the proposed bill, 28 per cent of workers' payments under the scheme come from common law cases—and, in Queensland, it is 41 per cent. Without the right to sue the bill would not provide the fairest scheme in the country. It would provide a scheme that is 28 per cent less fair than in Victoria. There is also no recognition in the drafting of these proposals that self-insured employers do not have the same scheme management issues yet come under the same law. The bill will deliver a massive windfall to these businesses.

Thirdly, there is a huge missing piece of the system not even dealt with, and that is: what happens to people on the scheme? There is no examination or legislative requirement that will improve the behaviour of the rehabilitation industry or the connection between the employer, the agent and the rehab provider. We all know what works, and some self-insured employers, such as the Local Government Association, actually put it into practice: fast claims determination; immediate and supportive response; clear and targeted support for the worker; and return to work as soon as possible.

We have a rehab industry which, in a number of reported cases, seems to focus more on how to charge WorkCover for their services rather than actually achieving results. There is a need for an independent inquiry into the practices of the industry and also legislation that builds in the processes that we know work.

Finally, our overall concern is one of process and final legislative and scheme outcome. Yes, we do need to address the financial viability of the scheme. We have offered again and again to assist but the agenda does not appear to be really about this. It seems to be more about reducing the cost to business. If this is the motivation and this legislation is rammed through, then we are very likely to end up with a scheme which is still not effective in returning people to work safely and fairly but which is significantly cheaper for employers. Our estimation of the savings to business of this bill is $865 million over six to nine years, more than WorkCover's unfunded liability of $843 million.

What do we want?

1. Time to do the job of fixing the scheme properly. The bill should not be pushed through parliament. Members should have time to consider and amend, and an attempt to guillotine the debate would be scurrilous.

2. Engagement by the government of the key parties who legitimately care about having a fair but effective scheme.

3. To be able to learn from the experience of the self-insured employers in South Australia with speedy management of claims, immediate involvement of rehabilitation and health providers and fast return to work.

4. No levy reduction until we are confident that a fair system is delivered for workers that also addresses the financial issues of the scheme.

5. Independent inquiry into the rehabilitation industry in SA and their practice and success in supporting workers return to work.

6. Stronger focus on OHS with on the spot fines, penalties for employers that are linked to levy payments and the right of entry for union officials in order to assist in injury prevention.

7. Funding for re-training of injured workers.

We seek common sense and the bringing together of good minded people in our state from unions, employers, lawyers and providers who genuinely share our concern that injuries should be prevented but if they happen workers should be supported to get better quickly and get back to work and if they can't then they receive appropriate compensation.

If we do not succeed in getting a just result for workers in the current political process, unions will continue to meet our objectives of building justice for our members in the way that we have always done. If we cannot achieve it through good laws, we will use our collective strength to get it in other ways. In Victoria, it is common for collective agreements to have make up pay for injured workers for 52 weeks to ensure that, when the workers comp scheme stops protecting them they can rely on their union collective agreement for the rest. I know that SA unions are considering this as an option and looking across the border for assistance.

We will also continue to campaign publicly and politically to achieve justice for injured workers. If the bill is passed in its current form we will be forced to campaign beyond this legislative time frame. This issue goes to the very core of our business as unionists and regardless of the political persuasion of the government we will continue to do our job which is looking after the rights of workers to safe and fair work.

That address was aimed at us. It was prepared for members of the Legislative Council, the vast majority of whom chose not to attend. I draw the council's attention to the exception—that is, my honourable colleagues on the cross benches, many of whom attended that meeting.

I think that that contribution, from someone who has been intimately involved in the system for a long time, summarises very clearly what is wrong, what the process should be to get it right and what some of the practical solutions might be.

I want also to refer to some other remarks that Janet made not in the parliament but at the May Day rally. Again, they are important because they are addressed to the people of South Australia who hold themselves to be close to the labour movement and to the interests of working people. That is what May Day is all about. Again, remarkably few members of this place attended the May Day rally. Those who did attend did so in a fairly nervous manner because, whilst on one part they wanted to be seen to be supporting workers and supporting the campaign against this bill, they were nervous because their commitment to the parliamentary party did not enable them to actually put what they said were their principles into practice. So, this is the reflection on May Day specifically as it relates to WorkCover:

On May Day we remember the great achievements made by our nation to make the world a fairer and safer place. Over the last three years we have worked hard to get rid of Howard and create an opportunity for, once again, establishing fair work laws in our nation. This was done through the actions of many people at the grass roots level who spoke with their workmates and their families and persuaded them that Labor was the party for the workers and would support workers' rights.

Now is the chance to rebuild our nation on a platform of fairness and justice. It is the time to build from the ground up a new fair industrial relations system based on the principles of collective bargaining, to also build a family friendly workplace culture with a national paid maternity leave scheme for all, and to build a nationally consistent occupational health and safety system, which prevents accidents and injuries in the workplace and a nationally consistent system that fully and fairly compensates those who are injured and assists them to get better and back to work.

Yet in South Australia we are faced with a fight to maintain the rights of injured workers. This fight is fundamental to the work of the union movement. It is one of the big three jobs that we have in our nation: one, to advance the rights of workers to fair pay, treatment and respect; two, make sure workplaces are safe; and three, ensure that workers are looked after when they are injured at work. All these form a platform for decent treatment for all.

We thought that our Labor government shared this purpose and would work with us even in difficult circumstances on this shared purpose. We also thought we were partners in making this state a fair and just place to live and that, even if we had disagreements, we would be able to work them out in the interests of working people.

This current bill before the parliament at the moment shows that there is greater concern from our government about its reputation as economic managers than its reputation as social managers, yet this issue is also an economic one. At a time of high skills shortage we need to attract workers to South Australian industry and improve the skill level of our workforce. If wages, conditions, safety standards and workers compensation rights are worse here than other places we will not be able to deal with these issues.

The actuarial unfunded liability of a workers compensation scheme is a predictive number about the future. It is based on assumptions and patterns of the scheme operating over the next 40 years. It is not, as the Liberals would claim, a State Bank. It will not affect the ordinary South Australian taxpayer. It will not even affect the Foley AAA credit rating. It is outside the state budget.

Yes, there are financial problems in the workers compensation scheme and, yes, there needs to be change, but the problem with the bill is that the philosophy behind the proposed legislation is that the financial problems arising from people not being able to return to work lie with them, that there needs to be an incentive (financial and legal) to force and starve workers back to work because they choose to be on workers compensation payments. Well, none of us would willingly choose to be injured, and none of us would willingly choose to be treated the way workers are treated by WorkCover.

What the bill before parliament will mean to an ordinary worker is this. After injury, your capacity will be determined by a star chamber of five medical practitioners, chosen by WorkCover, with no representative rights and no appeal of their decision, except to the Supreme Court, which costs around $1,000 to appear, let alone lawyers' costs. If you are not back to work and better in 13 weeks, your pay is reduced by 10 per cent; and after 26 weeks it is reduced by a further 10 per cent.

For low paid workers living on the minimum wage — process workers, cleaners, aged care workers, disability support workers — this would mean that they would be living on less than the legal minimum wage set each year. Seventy-five per cent of women in this country earn less than $42,000 a year. South Australia is one of the lowest wage states in Australia. This will hit the most vulnerable the hardest.

If after 2½ years you have not been able to find work and are still injured, you will be kicked off all payments and forced to go to Centrelink to claim support. This means a significant reduction in pay, forcing injured workers to live on $546.80 a fortnight on a disability pension and $437.10 a fortnight on the Newstart Allowance. This will immediately apply to at least 1,000 workers, maybe up to 2,000 workers, who are currently on the workers compensation system for more than 2½ years.

If you have a dispute with the way your WorkCover claim is being managed and you want to go to the tribunal to argue it, your pay will be suspended during the dispute. This is just unjust. It will not be a significant saving to WorkCover and, once again, it will hit hardest workers on the lowest wages. Along with reductions in the amounts payable for loss of limb or function, cutting off people from payments after 2½ years is not backed up with any ability to access common law rights and sue employers for damages. Every other state in the country has this legal right in their workers compensation schemes.

The most insidious part of this plan, however, is that the justification for making these changes is not only the funding position of the scheme but also that employer levies are high and the government wants to cut their levies. So the plan is to cut workers' entitlements in order to give a windfall to employers. There are no corresponding demands on employers to behave differently to ensure that they make more effort to find work for injured workers and assist with retraining and making their workplaces safer in the first place. All the pain is borne by the injured worker.

So, what do we want? We want the ability to sit down with the government and genuinely work through a fair system that would also solve the financial problems of the scheme. This may mean some change, but change should be fair and impact on employers and not just on workers. We also want an independent examination of rehabilitation services, a genuine retraining scheme and a special project established to humanely manage those people who are currently on WorkCover for over three years to get them better and treat them with some dignity.

There is an undue rush to get this legislation through parliament. The plan was always, and continues to be, to get it enacted by July this year. The briefing continues:

It was passed in the lower house through the unsightly spectacle of Labor crossing the floor to sit with the Liberals on the 90 amendments put by Kris Hanna and then on the bill itself.

It is now in the upper house. Every crossbench member opposes this bill. The Liberals are playing a game where they speak against the bill but vote for it. It's up to the Independents and small parties to now ensure there is at the very least thorough debate in time for the community to hear the arguments.

The Hon. A. Bressington: Another Labor and Liberal collude.

The Hon. M. PARNELL: Another Labor and Liberal collude, the Hon. Ann Bressington reminds us. Janet Giles' briefing continues:

We thank them for this. And I want to ask them now to come to the stage so you can see those who will support workers in this Legislative Council.

In fact, we did not go to the stage at that point, because a couple of us had spoken already. It continues:

We also call on those supporters who are ALP members of parliament and are also opposed to this bill to be brave, stand with us and do all they can to put pressure on the Premier to see sense and talk.

If the bill is delayed or if the bill goes through the parliament, regardless of the result, the fundamental work of the union movement continues. We will meet as a movement and determine how we best protect members in a hostile workers comp climate. We will continue to highlight the impact of these changes on working people and remind the public of who did it to them. We will re-examine the support we give to candidates in the next election and determine this support according to those who we know stood with us during this time.

We will also continue their campaign for safer workplaces and the better treatment of injured workers. This is our job. May Day reminds us of the nature of our work. It's a long struggle, never an easy fix. We have done before, we will continue to do it, and we know we have the ability, the will and the support to achieve it for the sake of the dignity of working people, a fairer community and a just future for our children and grandchildren.

I thank the indulgence of the council to put on the record those two important contributions by Janet Giles, because they do sum up more quickly than I could the real issues behind this WorkCover debate.

I mentioned earlier that, in response to Janet Giles resigning from the WorkCover board, a great many comments were put on the public news websites, which invite people to respond to news items of interest. A number of people responded not just to Janet Giles' resignation but also to the issue of the bill itself. The following include some community contributions made after people had explained to them what the impacts of this legislation would be. One such comment on The Advertiser website on 3 March this year is from Michael Dann of Two Wells. He states:

Mike Rann this surely is a joke. I and many other common blue-collar workers put my faith in the Labor Party to look after the average working man or woman. The grossly unfair IR laws had us all looking for a better leader to save us from sure financial and more than likely mental ruin only to be stabbed in the back by our own state leader...

There is now an unparliamentary word which I will not repeat. I did not realise how colourful his language was. It continues:

What are we to do now Mr Rann? With rising interest rates, higher cost of living, trying to support a family...which the government is begging us to make bigger, have more kids, earn less money, and if you hurt yourself while working? Too bad, goodbye house, goodbye self-worth, goodbye life as you once had it. Maybe next time you will be more careful!

I wonder if Mr Rann has ever had to live with chronic pain day in day out. Managing your life on painkillers, unable to go out with family, play games with your kids, constantly grumbly due to constant pain and use of painkillers. But then just when things couldn't get any worse, we will take away his job, his ability to support his family. Thank you Mr Rann. If you ever happen to be passing me in the street, sleeping on a park bench after our government is finished with us, please be sure to spit on me and kick me while I am down just to complete the job.

The quote concludes with another unparliamentary word, which I will not read. I will not go through all these, because there are pages of them. I will not test the patience of the chamber doing that. Another entry on the website states:

Shame, Mr Rann, shame, and to think I was stupid enough to think you cared about people and was even more stupid to help vote you into government. Ah, the benefit of hindsight — won't make that mistake again.

Another entry states:

I hope that some of the smug individuals who support these amendments sustain a work-related injury after these changes come into force. They may discover that it is possible to have a partial incapacity beyond the 2½ year mark and an employer unwilling to accommodate their restrictions. Guess what happens next? They will have every chance of losing their job when the employer insists that they perform their full and unrestricted pre-injury duties and they are physically incapable of doing so. This is the reality of what the economic rationalists are supporting. To add insult to injury, workers in this state have no right to sue their employer where their injury has arisen as a result of the employer's negligence, including a preventable explosion resulting in the loss of an arm. Well done Mike Rann and the Liberal — sorry — Labor Party.

That is a common theme where people mistake the Liberal and Labor parties on this issue. Another entry states:

Have Liberal Party members infiltrated the Labor Party to such an extent that they could seriously consider introducing legislation to reduce injured workers' entitlements? It is an absolute disgrace. So much for looking after the battlers!

Another states:

Shame on you Mr Rann. Injured workers should not be punished financially for being on workers comp. It's hard enough to get by on a mortgage and other expenses, and then to punish injured workers financially will only hurt them more. It does nothing to address the causes of workplace injury or safe occupational health and safety in the workplace. Why is Rann punishing injured workers in the hip pocket where it hurts them most? I'll be writing to my local Labor MP. My family and I will fight this bill to the death. (Yes, someone in my family is on WorkCover and I'm ashamed to have voted Labor at the last election).

There are far too many for me to go through them all, but I would urge members to get on to web sites, such as Adelaidenow.com.au. I have skipped over about 20. I will not read them. I will just do a couple more. Another entry states:

How can you call any system fair where injured workers' income maintenance is cut off until the dispute is settled? How do you explain to your family that we live in a democratic society and that's how the governments do things? Perhaps the job should be left to WorkCover counsellors to explain why injured workers are forced to sell their family homes because they were injured at work and are not getting paid until the court settles a dispute. Will the government reimburse the auctioneers' fees and the sales tax in the case that wages and back pay are reinstated in these circumstances? It is apparent that injured workers were not really consulted by Mr Clayton — another classic example of our democratic society. P.S. See you all on the steps of parliament house tomorrow.

The Hon. Ann Bressington asked me whether there is anything in these dozens and dozens of contributions about the Libs. For her benefit, I have found one. It states:

Mr Rann is sounding more like John Howard every day. It's an absolute disgrace to even contemplate cutting benefits to genuinely injured workers. I can't believe I am hearing a Labor leader support this. With this and the law and order debacle, with this softly, softly attitude of judges and Rann and the government lack of guts to take them on, I might have to vote Independent — oh God, I can't believe I am saying this — even Liberal at the next election.

Members are keen to see that I am reporting in a balanced way some of this online commentary. These are the contributions of ordinary South Australians — people whose voice is not normally heard in this place; people who have not, even through their elected union representatives, had a chance to put their position directly to the government. The final contribution I will read from this series is from John of Unley. He said:

Am I dreaming? I thought the Liberals would support the business sector and crucify the worker in this way and Labor would fight to the death for workers' rights.

There is some unparliamentary language, which I will not read. The contribution continues:

These changes will affect everyone, as we all work and know someone who has been injured at work at some time and needed WorkCover. It won't be hard to work out who to vote for at the next election. Good-bye Mike. What about those in dangerous occupations such as the police or firefighters who get badly injured protecting us all? Why would they want to do that when they will be left high and dry if they get injured? Snap out of it Mike. You are a Labor man. Trim the admin costs and reduce the fat cats and leave the workers' entitlements alone.

I think that pretty well sums up the range of contributions from ordinary members of the public and their reactions to this legislation.

We then get to the situation where the legislation has been introduced into the parliament and the lower house is invited to debate it. That is where we find this fascinating exchange in the other place where Labor members of parliament either speak with a forked tongue in saying that they do not like it but they will vote for it, or some even trying to justify the unjustifiable position. It was summed up, I guess, by the member for Enfield, who I think summarised the position of many of his colleagues. He said:

I can tell members here that the minister does not find the solutions palatable. Nobody in the government finds these solutions palatable.

My response to that is that, if I find some things not palatable, I do not eat it: I put it to the side of my plate. It ends up in the compost eventually. I try to find some good use for it.

I accept that a lot of what governments need to do is not palatable, but the usual approach and the decent approach when difficult and unpalatable decisions need to be made is that you try to bring people with you. You work hard on explaining to and working with your key stakeholders to get them to the point where they can see it from your point of view and they accept that something might be done. They accept often that painful solutions need to be put in place. But we are not even at that stage. As I have said before (and I will not repeat myself): the unions have not had the ability to sit down and negotiate with the Labor government.

The Treasurer in another place has tried to spin this debate in a way that I find most disturbing. He says:

"As I have said before, this is clearly not an easy decision for a Labor government. This is a decision that has caused much angst within the Labor caucus, much angst within the Labor movement...There are unions protesting against this, and many of my colleagues are very unhappy about what this government is doing — and I respect their views. The Labor Party has demonstrated that, notwithstanding the fact that this has been an exceptionally difficult decision — and, dare I say, also a very difficult one for the minister — he should be applauded for the way in which he has managed to tackle a fundamental structural flaw in the scheme in the manner in which he has...This has not come easily to the minister, and I know that. It has not come easily to the cabinet, but it is what has had to be done. I think that what demonstrates a government's capacity to govern is that, even though a decision causes much friction, much tension, much emotion within a political party and its constituent bodies, at the end of the day it has the internal fortitude and the structural elements within the party to enable people to voice their opinions but for the party ultimately to reach a landing on a position. I have never been prouder of the Labor Party than I am today..."

That is what the Treasurer said in relation to WorkCover. What a remarkable statement that is. I have never, I think, heard such an internally inconsistent statement which tries to reflect values which have been abandoned and make a virtue out of an appalling process that did not need to be handled in the way it was. He talks about 'internal fortitude' and 'structural elements within the party to enable people to voice their opinions'. Where was the internal fortitude when we compare the government's approach to this legislation to poor old Mr Iemma in New South Wales, who could have said exactly the same things about having to make tough decisions, but at least he had the decency to go through his party processes and be roundly defeated 700 votes to 100 votes, and then face the music.

The Hon. P. Holloway interjecting:

The Hon. M. PARNELL: The minister says that I should worry more about the bill than the Labor Party, but the point is that, in a democratic institution, people have a right to compare the legislation that a government puts forward with the principles that the government says it stands for. If there is a disconnect between what the government is doing and what the party says it stands for, then I think it is most appropriate for me, as it is for anyone else in the community, to draw attention to that fact. So, I do not apologise for pointing out the hypocrisy of the government. The Treasurer goes on:

I have never been prouder of the Labor Party than I am today, because I think that the Labor Party has demonstrated that we are a natural party of government, that we are a party that can govern, that we are a party that has the inner strength to do what is right...This is what makes a government. In a vibrant democracy with parliamentary representation, it is quite natural, quite appropriate and quite understandable that there will be varying degrees of emotion, dispute and unhappiness within a political party when it makes a hard decision. We are not a dictatorship.

Say that again: 'We are not a dictatorship'? It continues:

Our nation, our country, our state and our political parties are organic beings: they all have a view; members are entitled to express their views, and those views have certainly been well expressed.

Well, they have not been well expressed in the organs of the party that were specifically designed to have them addressed. Whether it is council meetings or state conferences, all of these are being subsumed under the desire of the government to get this appalling legislation through. So, the question that I have for the Treasurer is: if you are so proud and so confident of the democratic institutions within your party, then why will you not let your state council meet and why will you not bring forward your state conference?

I think the real reason for this is summarised in a very short but most telling sentence that was published in the Weekend Australian of April 19-20, in an article by John Wiseman under the heading: 'Labor, unions slug it out over WorkCover'. We have this very simple sentence which I think sums up the Labor Party's position and its attitude to the lack of consultation and negotiation in this whole debate. The commentary from John Wiseman is as follows:

Premier Mike Rann believes he can sweep this internal opposition aside because —

and then he quotes the Premier —

'We're a bloody sight better for working people than the alternative.'

At the end of the day that, I think, is at the heart of this debate. What the Premier is banking on is that, with those historical connections between the labour movement and the Labor Party and the general antipathy between the labour movement and the Liberal Party, the union movement at the end of the day will just lump it; they will just say, 'Yes, he's right, you know. There's nowhere else that we can go.'

I am not denying the century-long relationship between organised labour and the Labor Party and, as I said at the May Day rally, it is a relationship of some familiarity and we all know what the outcome of familiarity can be: familiarity breeds contempt.

The contempt that the Premier shows in the statement, 'We're a bloody sight better for working people than the alternative', is effectively saying, 'There is nowhere else for you to go. You must accept what we are doing because there is no alternative.' TINA, the acronym: There Is No Alternative. Where did that come from? Margaret Thatcher: she is the one who was forever saying, 'There is no alternative.' Clearly, the people at the May Day rally could see that there were Independents in attendance; the Greens were there in great numbers, and people could see that there was an alternative to the Labor government.

The person who received a great deal of praise was the Independent member — not Labor, not Liberal — for the seat of Mitchell, Kris Hanna, who received a rousing response from people. His contribution in the lower house is really the only contribution of any great worth. In fact, for all the effort that he went to with his amendments, his analysis and his suggestions for alternatives, I have even heard people say that he was too polite, that he did not go hard enough against the government.

I think that the member for Mitchell's contribution is one that he should be proud of. I expect to have my amendments to this legislation on file very shortly, a great many of which are based on the amendments that were moved by the member for Mitchell in another place.

The Hon. D.W. Ridgway interjecting:

The Hon. M. PARNELL: Members will say, 'Well, we haven't had a chance to look at them', and that is right. The Hon. David Ridgway says, 'We haven't had a chance to look at them,' but —

Members interjecting:

The Hon. M. PARNELL: I have a few more. Members have not seen the amendments, but they will see them soon. It will not take most members by surprise to realise what kind of amendments they are. We will get to the committee stage of this debate and we will go through these amendments. Mr President, at this hour I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Adjourned debate on second reading (resumed on motion).

The Hon. M. PARNELL (19:47): Before the dinner break, I had started to look at some of the debate in the lower house, and I mentioned the member for Mitchell and the contribution he made to that debate. Over dinner, I took my red pen to some of my prepared contribution. So, I will not keep the council longer than I think it is necessary to tell this story properly.

I will leave the extracts from the member for Mitchell's contribution I was going to refer to, other than one particular quote the honourable member mentioned that I think deserves to be heard by members in this place as well. At the end of his contribution, the member for Mitchell said:

I want to finish with a quote from one of our most powerful, persuasive and tactically brilliant members of parliament. He said:

"We will see injured workers threatened and harassed. We will see a government that will actively reduce benefits and work against the proper return-to-work arrangements that are essential if we are really committed to rehabilitation. We will see legislative and administrative action aimed at forcing workers onto social security, out of compensation, out of rehabilitation, out into the streets and onto social security. Instead of rehabilitation and support we will see this government enter into an adversarial approach to injured workers. It will cause massive financial hardship to many genuinely injured South Australian workers. It will cause stress to families and it will undermine personal dignity.

That is what this government is about, make no mistake about it. This bill is not innocuous: it is about a change in power. It is about an end to consensus, and it is about the end of industrial relations, commonsense and consultation in this state. This is a day not of historic reform but of shame. It is about turning the clocks back by decades, and members opposite know it."

There is no Freddo Frog prize for knowing who said that: it was our Premier, the Hon. Mike Rann, and he said it in 1995. It is exactly what the union movement is saying in 2008, and it is exactly what I am saying applies to this legislation today. I went through the Labor Party's policy platform at some length in relation to industrial relations, occupational health and safety and WorkCover because I felt that it was important that it be put on the record so that it can stand in contrast to what the government is now doing. I was also proposing to read into Hansard the alternative view in terms of party political policies, even though the Premier believes there is no alternative, but the Greens have a very strong policy on industrial relations.

Everything that I am standing for in my contribution to this debate and the amendments that I will be moving are part of my party's platform. The Greens are proudly standing behind working people, working families, and in relation to WorkCover, the injured workers in particular. But it is not just here in South Australia — we are a relatively new political force in this state on issues such as WorkCover: my colleagues interstate have had to fight these same battles. In Western Australia, the Greens were central to amending and having softened some of the worst aspects of that Labor government's legislation. In New South Wales, in 2001 it was a situation very similar to the one we find here, where the Greens were instrumental.

I was going to refer at some length to a very relevant report that came out of New South Wales but I will not do that; instead, I will refer to a couple of sentences because I still think it is important. The New South Wales Greens Parliamentary Report June to August 2001 authored by one of our members there, Lee Rhiannon, in relation to the Workers Compensation Amendment Bill (No. 2) states:

Workers compensation was a hot issue both inside and outside parliament throughout June. An unprecedented protest outside the NSW parliament against the Labor government's workers compensation package reflected the depth of anger over this important issue. A picket line, organised by the NSW Labor Council, attracted thousands of unionists and people concerned to protect the rights of injured workers. Passions ran high at the protest reflecting people's concern that the fundamental right of compensating employees injured at work was being dismantled. Lee [Rhiannon] and Ian [Cohen] spoke on a number of occasions on the picket line to inform protesters of The Greens' support for a strong workers compensation scheme and about negotiations concerning the government's legislation. When the legislation did come before the Upper House, we worked closely with a number of unions and developed and introduced 118 amendments. Most of these were defeated by the combined forces of the Labor Party and the Coalition.

I guess what that says is that there is nothing new under the sun. I think we can now see what is happening to Labor in New South Wales and I think that has to be sending alarm bells to Labor here in South Australia not to end up down the same slippery slope to irrelevance as far as working people are concerned.

One of the important things, I think, when someone is taking an oppositional view to government legislation is to propose what some of the alternatives might be. Clearly, we will go through that in detail in the committee stage but, for starters, I will refer to the Greens' five-point plan for dealing with WorkCover's unfunded liability. The first of those points is to ensure safer workplaces to stop injuries occurring in the first place, and that is because there are still far too many serious work-related injuries in South Australia. Clearly, when we look at the unfunded liability — that simple formula of money in, money out — if fewer people are being injured at work, fewer people are claiming on the system. So, what better way is there to reduce the unfunded liability? I do not think anyone disagrees with that as a proposition. Of course, that is what we all want to happen. The question for us is whether this bill delivers that outcome.

The second point of the Greens' five-point plan is that we need to reform WorkCover management, including the rehabilitation and claims management. It is important that we do that so that we do not blame sick and injured workers for poor management by WorkCover and its claims managers. We need to get workers back to work faster, we need more funding for retraining of injured workers, and we need a better system for ensuring a safe return to work.

The third point of the Greens' five-point plan is to reintroduce the right to sue under common law to provide incentives for employers to fix dangerous workplaces. As I have said before, they do it in every other state so why can we not do it?

The Hon. B.V. Finnigan interjecting:

The Hon. M. PARNELL: The Hon. Bernard Finnigan says that this is the lawyer speaking, as if my position on WorkCover is somehow based on a desire, perhaps post parliament, to enter the lucrative field of WorkCover litigation. I can tell the honourable member that there is nothing further from my mind. What I am interested in is enabling those workers whose injuries are the result of the negligence of their employers to get decent compensation that reflects the blame that lies with those who were negligent.

The fourth point of the Greens' five-point plan is that we need a better and more equitable system of offering long-term injured workers lump-sum payouts. If there is no chance to return to work, let us give injured workers a better chance to get on with their life.

The fifth point of our five-point plan is no levy reduction for employers until the scheme is financially secure. I have said it before so I will not go into all the reasons, but cutting workers' entitlements at the same time as reducing the WorkCover levy is a direct transfer of wealth from working people to employers. I cannot for the life of me see why the government thought that would be palatable to the community, let alone it being a gross injustice delivered to injured workers.

I think it helps to look a little at the history of WorkCover in order to determine the lessons for today that come out of that, but I will spare the council a detailed history lesson and will just make a couple of points. One of the reasons my contribution is as long as it is is because I think all this material, including historical material, helps us understand what is happening today—and I would like to put on record my thanks to Dr Zoë Gill of the Parliamentary Library who prepared an excellent summary of the history of WorkCover as well as an excellent summary of the various stakeholder positions.

All members have that material, so I do not need to read it into Hansard. I would also like to urge members who do want to learn from history (so that we do not repeat the mistakes of history) to go to the 2005 Statutory Authorities Review Committee report into WorkCover, because there is also a very comprehensive history of the WorkCover scheme in that. It does help a little to cut to the chase if members do their own basic historical research.

One feature that no member can fail to appreciate is that we have had an extraordinary number of reviews and inquiries into WorkCover in our recent history since this government came to power. In particular, in May 2002 we had the establishment of the Occupational Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Committee. In 2002 we also had the Stanley review, and the member for Mitchell, to whom I have referred before, in commenting on that review in March last year, said:

...the government has done practically nothing to implement the many recommendations to make the system more rational and fair as His Honour Judge Stanley recommended.

One of the most galling things about this legislation is that we have put WorkCover under the microscope a number of times in a number of different forums but the government has ignored many of the recommendations that have come out of that system. When it does finally come up with a solution, it is one that is not based on consultation: it is one that is pushed through without talking to the stakeholders. In 2003-04 the Occupational Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Committee produced three reports regarding a review of the Statutes Amendment (WorkCover Governance Reform) Bill. History shows that that bill went absolutely nowhere.

In 2004, WorkCover commissioned the Mountford McEwan review—and I will refer briefly to that shortly. In 2005, the Statutory Authorities Review Committee inquired into the WorkCover Corporation in South Australia and tabled its 40th report. I think that we need to have a close look at the lessons from that report as well, and I will do that a little later in my contribution.

In 2006 we had the WorkCover review when, in fact, WorkCover undertook a review into itself. That, effectively, went nowhere, as well. That brings us up to the review that most people are talking about in connection with this legislation, and that is the 2007 Clayton and Walsh review. In 2007, minister Wright announced a review into WorkCover to be conducted by two workers' compensation experts: Alan Clayton and John Walsh.

The review was due on 30 November 2007 but we did not see it until 26 February 2008. Given the complexity of this issue, the variety of contentious stakeholder positions, the fact that we have had that for only a couple of months says something about the haste with which the government is pursuing this legislation. There has been no reasonable time to fully consider the implications of that report. What we have by this government, once again, is an attempt to get agreement by attrition and lack of consultation. I think that is a disgraceful way to behave.

I was going to talk a little more about the Mountford McEwan review, and some other reviews as well, but I will not. However, the take-home message from all those reviews is that, throughout its history, WorkCover is a highly-contested field of debate, and that is why more scrutiny, rather than less, and more debate, rather than less, is appropriate.

The bluster and debate in relation to the current bill has reached a most unusual position — I am trying to be very polite with my words — in the response of the Leader of the Opposition to this legislation. Most of us were quite dismayed at the way the alternative premier handled this situation in the lower house. What the member for Waite (Mr Hamilton-Smith) said was:

This bill is so fundamentally flawed that a swag of amendments would do nothing more than shift the responsibility for this ugly mess from the government to others.

That was the Leader of the Opposition's rationale or excuse for not even trying to fix up this legislation. I disagree with the Leader of the Opposition. I think that a swag of amendments is the only way that we can attempt to fix, as he describes it, 'this ugly mess'. The Leader of the Opposition said:

...we will allow the government's bill to proceed without amendment. The Labor government is incapable of running our WorkCover scheme competently. So workers are to suffer and small business is to suffer.

As a legislator, I just do not understand why it is appropriate for the alternative government not even to consider amending this legislation when it was so outspoken in its condemnation of it. The member for Heysen in another place said:

Now we find that their final solution to the problem is actually to decimate the entitlements of the workers, and then the weak-willed people on the other side want to turn around and say that it is somehow up to us to fix it for them. Well, no; it is the government's problem, it is the government's solution and they can wear it.

I do not understand why that is an appropriate response to this situation. It seems to me that in this place we have the tools, the wherewithal and the ability to go through this legislation clause by clause and make it better. No-one is saying that the current WorkCover system is perfect. I and my colleagues on the crossbenches will do opposition's role for it, and we will pursue this raft of amendments to make this deplorable legislation better. Mrs Redmond (member for Heysen) said:

As part of my answer to the member for Enfield's question, 'Why aren't we fixing it?', I will tell you why I do not want to fix it personally: I do not consider that there is any benefit for me in fixing the workers' rights when the Labor Party will not.

I must have missed something, because I cannot see how anyone can think that fixing workers compensation is something that we do because it benefits us politically or as members of parliament: we do it because it is the right thing to do. We do it because, if we do not, no-one else can. That is why we do it. It has nothing to do with obtaining personal benefit. The member went on to say:

...no matter what the Labor Party does, Unions SA is still going to fund it at the next election, and therefore what motive would I have for trying to fix something for the workers?

Now we are getting a little closer to the truth and coming back to familiarity breeding contempt, which we heard in the Premier's remark that there is no alternative for working people

I think that what this debate has shown, and what the past couple of weeks of rallies have shown, is that working people do have somewhere else they can go: they have come to the upper house, and they are looking at the Greens and the Independent members, such as the Hon. Ann Bressington and the Hon. John Darley; and Family First and the Democrats are on the record as saying that they do not like this legislation. Working people are looking to all six crossbench members. There is an alternative, and I think the Labor Party ignores that at its peril. The member for Frome said:

...I apologise to those who would love the opposition to heavily amend or defeat this legislation. The government has created a situation, through its own denial...

So, the Liberals are apologising for not doing the job of an opposition in parliament. I have said that the Greens and my colleagues on the crossbenches are happy to step into the breach.

The PRESIDENT: Order! I remind the honourable member that this is not a political campaign speech.

The Hon. M. PARNELL: Thank you for your guidance, Mr President. I will not labour the point any further, as I think that all members present understand where I am going with it. Certainly, crossbench members have fewer resources than Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition. We have to consider the whole of the government's legislative agenda. I often tell people who ask what my role is that I am the Greens shadow minister for mining, fishing, farming, planning, education, health, WorkCover and serious and organised crime. We have to deal with the whole of the government's agenda. It is a big imposition for the Liberal Party to put onto us the job of trying to fix this legislation.

I read earlier a quote from the Premier when he was in opposition in relation to the 1995 WorkCover campaign, and I think it is worth having a closer look at that campaign. It is interesting to note the comments by Premier Rann (then leader of the opposition) in 1995 when the Liberal Brown government tried to attack injured workers. I refer, in particular, to a press release put out by the then opposition leader Mr Rann entitled 'Liberals must recognise the human cost of their WorkCover cuts'. If one compares the changes that the Liberals were trying to carry out then to the changes that the Labor Party is now proposing, one could argue that the Liberal Party was offering workers a much better deal in some ways. In 1995 the Premier said:

The Liberals' WorkCover laws would force these people [injured workers] onto pensions — a situation that would see them lose their homes.

That is the exactly the situation we are now facing; that is what the unions are telling me and it is what injured workers are telling me they most fear about these changes.

The campaign in 1995 is informative for the decisions we have to make today about the WorkCover bill. I refer, briefly, to an Australian newspaper article of 9 January 1995, under the heading 'Brown faces tough test on WorkCover reforms'. The article by John Kerin states:

The South Australian Brown Government faces its toughest legislative test with opposition mounting to a crucial bid to reform the state's WorkCover scheme. The state's peak union — the United Trades and Labor Council — warned in December that it would consider statewide industrial action over the issue, while the opposition has now also pledged to block key amendments when the bill is debated after parliament resumes on February 7.

It should be a case of changing around the names of the parties, but the difference here is that we do not see the opposition pledging to block the legislation or move any amendments. The article continues:

The opposition industrial affairs spokesman Mr Ralph Clarke claimed the changes proposed by the government would destroy rather than reform WorkCover. It is hard to imagine how anyone could draft a more vicious and uncaring piece of legislation.

He is no longer a member of parliament. He said back then that it would be hard to imagine. We do not have to imagine it now: it is a reality and it is before us. Mr Clarke continued:

Every clause is unacceptable in its current form.

However, the acting minister for industrial affairs, Mr Oswald, said the opposition had lost 'sight of the facts'. He said that the reforms were necessary to protect the very viability of the scheme, given that its unfunded liability had blown out to $111 million in the past financial year. He said that the opposition was part of a blatant and expected scaremongering campaign in the lead-up to the parliamentary debate. That is precisely what the Labor government has accused me, my crossbench colleagues and the unions of, as well.

I am indebted to a number of active Labor campaigners for hanging on to some of the old material from the 1994-95 campaign. One document forwarded to me is of particular interest — and it will be of particular interest to the Hon. Bernard Finnigan. It is a members' newsletter from the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association (SA Branch). The front cover of this newsletter contains a picture of a younger Don Farrell. He is standing in front of a billboard that was funded by the union. There is a picture of an injured worker on the billboard and the caption is: 'Pray you're not hurt at work under the new WorkCover laws'.

The headline item from the SDA members' newsletter is: 'SDA campaigns against attacks on injured workers'. I will not read the whole of that newsletter, but I will refer to a couple of the salient points. Under the heading, 'Hands off WorkCover', the newsletter goes on to say:

It does not pay to be a sick or injured worker under the Brown Liberal government and your union is taking every step it can to increase awareness of the planned changes to WorkCover legislation. According to the SDA State Secretary, Don Farrell, the proposed WorkCover changes not only take away an injured person's right to choose their own doctor, they remove incentives for employers to provide safe work places. The SDA is committed to reducing WorkCover costs by providing safe work places. Prevention of work place injuries should be a high priority and those with injuries should be rehabilitated, not abandoned by a new system.

The SDA supports calls to reject the Liberal government's WorkCover bill and the proposed privatisations of WorkCover claims management. Don Farrell said that a tax on weekly benefits — currently 100 per cent of average weekly earnings for the first 12 months and 80 per cent thereafter — are forecast. These benefits may drop as low as 60 per cent after a short period of time. He said the appeals tribunal had already lost one of its four judges, with the result that workers involved in appeals to the tribunal will now wait well over a year just to get a hearing, let alone a decision. The review panel has not been expanded and there are indications that its role will come under attack, threatening workers access to a fair and independent adjudicator.

Your union is making every effort to offset these threats by bringing awareness to members, participating in the WorkCover rally, lobbying the Democrats and expressing its concerns via submissions and a petition to the government, Don Farrell said. Don Farrell stated that the cost to the community is not only demonstrated in terms of emotional and social destruction wrought on victims and their families, although this was sufficient in itself to move the community to action.

The newsletter goes on. That was Mr Farrell's view 10 years ago. I would love to see a reprint of this newsletter. The plates probably still exist at a printer somewhere. It should not be hard to do. Only a couple of names need to changed and we could have the SDA back on this campaign. The question I will leave for the chamber is: where is that particular union and where is Mr Farrell in this debate today?

Another one of the brochures under the heading 'Just imagine Mr Brown' has a picture of our former premier standing there with little arrows pointing to various parts of his body: 'stress', with an arrow pointing to his head; 'respiratory illness', the chest; 'lower back injury'; and 'repetition strain injury', with an arrow pointing to his hands. I will refer to a couple of sentences from the brochure. In part, the brochure states:

Work injury happens all the time. It can and does happen to anybody. Repairing the hurt is not cheap but it is uncaring and irresponsible to throw people on the scrap heap. That's what your proposed radical WorkCover changes would do. Mr Brown, you cannot know just how bad it is to be an injured worker, to be forgotten, to be too expensive, to be uncertain of whether your career will ever get back on track or whether you can meet your mortgage, to be called a WorkCover bludger. When the Brown government says, 'We cannot afford WorkCover', it is saying 'Injured workers must pay'. They already pay. Problems in WorkCover can be fixed by preventing injury and illness, not slashing benefits and rights.

This is an advertisement, but there is an invitation in this advertisement to attend a rally on the steps of Parliament House. A large number of community groups have offered their support. Some of them are unions, some of them are ethnic groups, such as the Ethnic Communities Council, the Greek Welfare Council, there are student groups and a range of other professional bodies as well.

Another campaign pamphlet was put out at the time. I will not read all of it, because I think that members get the idea, but basically we are having a rerun of that campaign. The only difference is that the parties' names are different and we do not have an opposition standing up as we did back then. Under the heading 'Who's being responsible, Mr Ingerson?' the brochure states:

The current argument in parliament about workers compensation is not really about fiddling with some minor technical changes to the compo system. It is about money: taxpayers' money. Instead of maintaining a system that makes employers with unsafe workplaces pay the costs, the Brown government is taking the easy option and dumping the problem onto the Commonwealth government's lap. Under the new arrangements long-term injured workers will have little choice but to take Commonwealth government pensions; and who pays for that? The taxpayer; you and me.

I will not read the rest of that. Similarly, I do not need to go through in great detail the UTLC media release of the day, but it focuses on that same theme, the fact that taxpayers will be footing the bill for South Australia's WorkCover injuries. The call of the unions then was the same as the call of the unions now. They say:

We are calling on the ALP and the Australian Democrats —

who were the only crossbench members back then —

in the Legislative Council to vote out these new and draconian measures when parliament resumes on 4 April.

We will be going to a vote at some stage in the not too distant future on this legislation and I can tell you that, unless the government sees reason and supports the amendments that I will be putting forward, we will have no alternative but to throw the whole package out.

The rest of my notes regarding that old campaign consist of newspaper articles, the thrust of which is that the campaign was regarded as a major victory for employees. The opposition and the crossbench eventually combined to defeat the worst aspects of the bill, and we could be doing that now. We could have the crossbenchers and the opposition combining to defeat the worst aspects of this bill. Because we members in the Legislative Council take our role seriously, we would be doing so with the aim of meeting the government's objectives, or at least the main government objective — getting injured workers back to work, reducing the unfunded liability and when that has happened, but only when that has happened, reducing the burden of WorkCover levies on employers.

We can do all those things and I am terribly disappointed that I do not have the opportunity to work with the opposition to do this job properly. Unless the government changes its views, we will see a very similar situation to what happened in the lower house, which is that all the amendments put up by the member for Mitchell were defeated. Some of those amendments, it would be correct to say, fundamentally went to the heart of the bill and I can understand why a government that thought that it had the right bill would be against them, but others were practical, sensible measures to fix up problems with the legislation, and my amendments will fall into those categories as well. There will be some that are fundamental that go to questions such as the step‑downs in relation to injured workers' entitlements, but others are more of a housekeeping exercise, to actually reform the system, make it more efficient and help it to achieve its objectives.

In the interests of keeping the debate moving, as I said, I have taken a red pen to some of my comments so I will not go through all the material I had, but I would like to go to one important point which I think touches at the heart of the credibility of the Labor Party on this issue, and that is the interview that the President of SA Unions, Nick Thredgold, gave to ABC Radio earlier this year. He was pressed by the journalists about whether he thought cuts to workers' entitlements were on the cards. Was it going to happen, did he think? And he talked about conversations that he had had with the government and, referring to the relevant minister, minister Wright, he said:

This minister is a man of his word and he has reassured the union movement that there will be no cuts to benefits.

That is one of those quotes that I think will go down in infamy. We have also seen some similar claims by an ex-WorkCover board member, Les Birch, that Labor has also reneged on undertakings that it has given to unions. With the permission of the council, I will read some of this, although not all of it because I have crossed out great chunks. It is an email that says it has been prepared and issued by Les Birch, a workers compensation advocate who has been employed for the last 14 years by the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (Forestry and Furnishing Trades Division). Les has been actively involved in workers compensation since 1979, and from April 1987 to June 1994 was a WorkCover Board member. This email was posted on a website called workcovergonebad.com.au — and the title is a story in itself. He says:

When Michael Wright was the opposition spokesperson for industrial relations and workers compensation prior to the election of the Australian Labor Party...to government in 2002, he was provided with an enormous amount of information from people inside the trade union movement and within the WorkCover Corporation that clearly showed that the scheme was on a downward slide as a consequence of political decisions that had been taken by the Liberal state government and the leadership of the corporation.

In 2000-01 the WorkCover board and the CEO of the WorkCover Corporation decided not only to reduce the levy rate but also to provide a rebate to employers throughout South Australia. In 2000 and 2001 Michael Wright attended at least three meetings at the [UTLC] office on South Terrace...On one occasion the opposition leader, Mike Rann, accompanied Michael Wright. On each occasion Michael Wright gave an absolute assurance that on election of the ALP to government the Workers Rehabilitation and Compensation Act would be improved to benefit injured workers.

On one occasion Michael Wright stated that should the ALP be elected in 2002 he would have a review conducted of the workers compensation scheme within six weeks after being elected and the findings would be introduced through legislative change. The trade union representatives involved in workers compensation at the time felt that the time frame was ambitious but the commitment was welcomed.

On being elected, minister Wright established the Stanley review, and the findings were handed down in mid-2002. However, it was not until 20 December 2002 that minister Wright officially released the findings. They have gathered dust ever since. Minister Wright is to be condemned for his failure to honour his commitment to the trade union movement and his lack of responsibility in addressing the leadership and management problems within the WorkCover Corporation.

Approximately 18 months ago, the Treasurer Kevin Foley (supported by representatives of the business sector) stated that there was a problem with WorkCover and that it would be fixed. Treasurer Foley and the chairperson of the WorkCover Board, Bruce Carter, decided that the board would put up recommendations to the government to change the WorkCover legislation.

The recommendations that were put forward were extremely draconian. However, Bruce Carter and the majority of the WorkCover Board were so confident that the recommendations that they had put to the government would be introduced that the WorkCover management established a unit within the WorkCover Corporation specifically to assist the government in drafting the necessary legislative changes. In mid 2007 I and another union official were invited to minister Wright's office to discuss our concerns that the corporation was outsourcing their responsibilities under section 58B and 58C of the act to Employers Mutual which was like putting Dracula in charge of the blood bank. The minister stated that he shared our concerns but was powerless to do anything about it as it was a WorkCover board decision. During our discussion I raised with minister Wright the trade union movement's concerns that the corporation was working on amendments to the legislation that were draconian.

He gave his undertaking that, while he was the minister responsible for workers compensation in South Australia, he would not introduce legislation that was detrimental to injured workers. History has now shown that minister Wright has reneged on that undertaking just as he reneged on his promise in relation to the Stanley review in 2002. Minister Wright, however, is not the primary architect behind the proposed legislation [it is now the bill we are discussing] that will have dramatic adverse effects on injured workers in this state.

The Hon. A. BRESSINGTON: Mr President, I draw your attention to the state of the council.

A quorum having been formed:

The Hon. M. PARNELL: I will continue where I left off. In relation to the Treasurer, Mr Les Birch said:

This is the man that masquerades as a Laborite but in reality is more conservative than his counterparts in the Liberal Party. This is the man who got it wrong in the Nicole Cornes saga, the Port Adelaide bridges and the Victoria Park corporate grandstand, and he considers South Australians as whingers.

I will not go through the rest of his criticisms of the Treasurer.

The Hon. P. Holloway interjecting:

The Hon. M. PARNELL: No.

The Hon. T.J. Stephens: Start again; I missed it.

The Hon. M. PARNELL: No, I will not start again. I am determined to keep to relevance. There are whole aspects of Les's report that I will not read. I do not need to go through every word.

The Hon. D.W. Ridgway interjecting:

The Hon. M. PARNELL: The honourable member says that he is glad I am keeping it brief.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Hon. I. Hunter): The honourable member is not only out of order: he is also out of his seat.

The Hon. M. PARNELL: I will reflect on the fact that people are no doubt tired. People are no doubt thinking, 'This is going on for a long time.' But what I say to people is that, if we are talking about, over time, cutting $1 billion from injured workers, feel free to criticise me for speaking for one day and for taking up, as I have, most of today on this important topic. I would like to move on to a new point. I want to talk about some of the consultation in relation to this legislation. I have pointed out the unions' position. They have made it very clear that they were not properly consulted.

However, I think there are parallels here between the Premier and WorkCover and former prime minister John Howard in relation to his WorkChoices. The parallel is that, the more people learn about these attacks on working families, the angrier they will be. That is why, as the union campaign gains momentum and as information slowly gets out there in the community, as it necessarily does, the angrier people are.

In the industrial relations area, the Rann government has passed two major pieces of legislation since coming to office: the fair work bill and the safe work bill. Both bills went through the same process. There was a report, there was public consultation on the report, there was a draft bill for public consultation and then the bill was introduced into parliament. That is the proper process for important legislation such as this. However, we have not gone down that path, because this time Premier Rann knows that he needs to get this off the news cycle. He needs to get it off the agenda before too many people see what it is really about.

As well as the unions that were not consulted, other people are complaining to me (and to my crossbench colleagues, no doubt, because we are the only ones who are listening to them) that they have not been involved in negotiations on an issue that affects them fundamentally: the self-insured employers are very unhappy that they have not been properly consulted; the workers themselves, and especially those workers who are already on WorkCover; the Injured Workers Support Group; the Work Injured Resource Connection Inc.; the Working Women's Centre; and the Injured and Disabled Workers Support Group. There are many others, but I will not go through all of them.

Another group is the Australian Lawyers Alliance. That group, in particular, has gone to great lengths to let us know, as members of the Legislative Council, what it sees is wrong with this legislation. Most of us (or, at least, those on the crossbenches) would have received a letter from Tony Kerin, the South Australian President. I will not read the whole of his letter, but he describes the Australian Lawyers Alliance and its commitment to the protection of individual rights, and he goes into some analysis about why the process has been so poor.

The association acknowledged that it made a lengthy submission to Clayton and Walsh, but it noted that very little comment or reference was made in the report to its submission, and ditto for the Law Society. It also noted that no-one with extensive legal training sat on the review committee.

The ALA commended Clayton and Walsh for their efforts and expertise but made the point that it is not the be-all and end-all of the debate. It said that the government commissioned that report, and what does it do now? It ignores the report. There is precedent for that. Judge Stanley's report still sits on the shelf somewhere in the Parliamentary Library, I am sure. The letter states:

The ALA's view is that it is never too late to agitate an issue, despite the fact that the state government would appear to have confirmed its position in recent days in relation to the bill.

Attached to the letter is a PowerPoint presentation from an expert in the field, Mr Simon Morrison, a former national president of the Australian Lawyers Alliance, who gave a briefing to some members of parliament on 1 April 2008. I am very disappointed that not more of my Legislative Council colleagues attended that briefing. Unfortunately, I do not think that a PowerPoint presentation falls into the category of documents that can be incorporated into Hansard. Perhaps with technological advances in the future we will be able to incorporate PowerPoint presentations.

The Hon. B.V. Finnigan interjecting:

The Hon. M. PARNELL: The Hon. Bernard Finnigan said, 'You can photocopy it.' It was photocopied. It has been circulated to all members of parliament. The Australian Lawyers Alliance thought that, on an issue as important as this, particularly given that the Labor Party would appear to be enacting a law that is directly contrary to its constituency, some thought may have been given to listening to an expert in the field. Mr Morrison's suggestions were plentiful. He said that the current bill will solve the long-term problem but cause great and unnecessary further damage to a number of already injured South Australians, and there are less draconian ways to solve the issues.

It is probably worth accepting that point: yes, you probably will fix the unfunded liability if you cut the entitlements of workers. Money in and money out. If you reduce the money out because you reduce the payments, that will probably do the job. But it does miss the point that the entire purpose of our workers compensation legislation is to compensate workers and to help them get back to work. The letter goes on to talk about Mr Morrison's submission, and states:

He explores the common law, a redemption strategy and other solutions which explain a way forward without further damage to injured workers. It is of great concern to ALA that both of the major parties appear to agree with having the bill passed. You have not had to, as our members and unions have, field phone calls from WorkCover recipients who are anxious, emotionally distressed and, in some cases, psychiatrically disturbed as a result of the bill. It is frightening to think of their reaction if this bill becomes law. There are solutions to this problem other than that which has been adopted.

It would have been good if parties could have put people beyond politics in this issue. This has much wider ramifications than the many thousands who are injured. Families will be destitute, injured workers will not go back to work, and the workers will be cut off the system with only Centrelink benefits. A number will lose their houses, homes will be destroyed, lives will be wrecked, suicides may, in fact, result. You need to ask who might be responsible for that happening. The answer is every member of parliament who votes for this bill, in our view. It is never too late. We would certainly ask that you all reconsider your positions regarding the bill. I look forward to receiving a call from any of you who have an inkling of statesmanship about them. This bill should not be about party politics. I await your contact should you care to discuss any aspect of the matter or the PowerPoint presentation.

That was Tony Kerin from the Australian Lawyers Alliance. I had an email today from another lawyer, who I think may be a member of this group. It was a very brief email, which was typed with some difficulty, with the lawyer in a neck brace. He had broken his neck in a mountain bike accident, and had turned up to work. I do not think that he was doing much client work, but he was keen to write to me and offer support and extra advice to try to advance this debate. That just shows the level of passion within the legal community.

I have talked a little about the reasons for rushing through this legislation but I have not talked about the pressure that both the major parties — the old parties — are under from Business SA. That is clearly a key feature of the debate so far, and I think it is very much at the heart of the Liberal position. Liberal members have been quite happy to see the Labor Party suffer under this legislation, but at the end of the day we know that they will vote for it because Business SA wants them to.

I now want to very briefly contrast the treatment that injured workers will suffer under this new legislation to the situation of those of us in parliament who might suffer the misfortune of a work-related injury, because I think it is a very useful comparison. Let us look at the benefits we will get if anything happens to us. The WorkCover scheme appears not to apply to members of parliament because we do not fit within the definition of employees or workers under the Workers Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1986, although further legal advice should be sought on this matter; so, my advice is that we are probably not under it.

Instead, members of parliament are provided for under the Personal Accident Compensation Scheme policy and, in some instances, of permanent incapacity or invalidity under the Parliamentary Superannuation Act 1974. The Personal Accident Compensation Scheme for members of parliament is outlined in the members' handbook. In broad terms, the scheme policy covers any extra costs associated with an injury that are not covered by Medicare or a member's private health insurance and provides for lump sum payments in accordance with the WorkCover scheme; so, there is some connection.

The scheme also provides for payments for the injury or death of a family member where the government is satisfied that the person was injured or killed as a result of his or her relationship with a member in his or her official capacity. What a remarkable provision that is. On those rare occasions when a member of my family might need to accompany me to an official work-related event, if something happens to them, they are covered as well. I wonder whether any other workers in South Australia with a spouse or children would have that benefit as well.

I will read a couple of sentences from the Personal Accident Compensation Scheme policy. It states:

1. The government carries its own risk in relation to the cover of members of parliament and will —

(a) make lump sum payments and pay medical and other relevant expenses to—

(i) Members who are caused personal injury or death arising out of any circumstances anywhere in the world.

Now, with WorkCover, when we get to the amendments we will be talking about journey claims; being injured going to work. I am covered, as are other honourable members, anywhere in the world. It is not just for when you are going to and from work. It continues:

(ii) spouses and other adult members of the families of members of parliament, where the government is satisfied that the person was injured or killed as a result of his or her relationship with a member in his or her official capacity;

(b) pay medical and other relevant expenses of minors where the government is satisfied that the minor was injured or killed as a result of his or her relationship with a member in his or her official capacity.

2.(a) lump sum payments and expenses payable under 1(a) above will be equivalent to those payable under the Workers Rehabilitation and Compensation Act...

So, there are links, in some circumstances, between the payments that we get. However, the circumstances in which we get them and their extension to members of our family who might be helping us with our work, I think, is far beyond what ordinary workers get.

There is a proviso, however, that medical expenses would normally be limited to the amount incurred in excess of the amount, if any, claimable under Medicare and any policy of medical insurance taken out by the family. I will not read the rest of that policy, but I can certainly provide members with a copy, in fact all members have it in their members' handbook.

I will say that the Personal Accident Compensation Scheme appears to be the result of a policy decision rather than being legislated, and as a result it could be changed at any time, compared with workers' rights, which are in legislation, and we cannot change those unless we do it through legislation. If we get it wrong in legislation then we get it wrong for the long term until, in fact, that legislation is amended.

I am advised that the clerks of both houses of this parliament have no record of workers' insurance for members of parliament before 1978, when an SGIC insurance policy was taken out in the name of the government to cover members of parliament of South Australia, although there is some anecdotal memory of a member receiving payments before that date. Since then the scheme has been revised a few times.

It is important to note that in 1986 the scheme changed to align with the structure and administrative procedure of the WorkCover scheme. I should also note that whilst people might think that that is close enough to WorkCover and maybe members of parliament are practising what they preach, what we have also got to look at is that we have additional benefits that relate to disability and injury through work, and that is through our parliamentary superannuation.

Whilst that does not technically count as workers compensation, it does provide for payments to permanently injured members who are unable to continue in their parliamentary business. I will not go through the different arrangements that apply. There are several different parliamentary superannuation schemes, but my recollection is that, if I am unable to continue my work as an MP, even though I might be able to do other work, from memory, I think it is five times salary as a lump sum, and then I can go on and do other work.

So, it is a very generous scheme. I hope I never have to take advantage of it and I hope no other honourable members need to take advantage of it, but we have in place a very generous scheme. I think the take-home message from that is that complaints of double standards will be difficult to bat off if we are not going to apply to ourselves exactly the same standards that apply to other workers.

I now want to go on to a new area relating to the government's claims that, with this legislation, we will still have the fairest system in the country. That is an easy claim to make, but it is wrong, and I think it is important that I put on the record why we will not have the fairest system once this act goes through. The Premier's WorkCover plan through this legislation, I think, says quite clearly that South Australian workers will not be worth as much as other Australians, and I think that is the bottom line.

Under this plan, recklessly or negligently injuring South Australians is at a discount. There are a number of ways that this plan short-changes South Australians compared to workers interstate. In every other state, workers have civil rights when they are badly hurt by serious employer negligence. We have talked about common law before; this bill bans workers' civil rights to take action. That is something that we want to try to get back into this legislation. I have mentioned before that, with some minor tweaks, this really is the Victorian legislation and that, in Victoria, 28 per cent of payments were due to serious employer negligence, civil rights.

We have to ask ourselves, and I ask the government: what makes up for that 28 per cent that the Victorian workers have that we do not have in South Australia? That is a gap that is undeniable, given the compensation figures that come from Victoria. It is true that the bill before us has slightly better step-down rules than the Victorian legislation, and the bill has a higher prescribed sum for lump sum payments than in Victoria, but it has been suggested to me that, at best, those areas where our system is better make up for about 8 per cent. So, that still leaves our injured workers 20 per cent worse off than Victorian workers.

The claim that our scheme will be the fairest in Australia, as I have said, has been at the centre of the government's campaign to sell this. It was the key feature of the Premier's ministerial statement to the parliament on 26 February and it featured very prominently in the minister's second reading explanation on 28 February. The fullest expression of the government's view and that of the WorkCover Board is probably that which was set out in an article included in the April edition of WorkCover's Newslink publication and that article was titled 'The fairest and most generous scheme'. I will quote a couple of sentences from that article, as follows:

South Australia's workers compensation scheme is an essential safety net for injured workers and remains, as it was in 1987 when it was established, one of the state's most significant initiatives to benefit the community. Coinciding with 20 years of operation of the scheme, an independent review has been undertaken reassessing the fundamental structure of the scheme for the first time since inception, despite South Australia's changing social and economic environment. The outcomes of the review, and the proposed legislation, will maintain the South Australian scheme as the fairest workers compensation scheme in the nation.

This is WorkCover telling the readers of its newsletter. When we examine the article's treatment of weekly payments we find that it contains the following statements:

Weekly payments are the compensation payments made to injured workers while they are unable to return to work (essentially, income replacement). For seriously injured workers, weekly payments can be paid until retirement. A significant proportion of injuries for which workers compensation is claimed are usually expected to heal within 12 weeks. The government has proposed that weekly payments be paid at a rate equal to the worker's wage for 13 weeks (i.e., 100 per cent).

This would ensure that there is full or near full coverage of the majority of workers' wages during the entire period of their claim. The article continues:

At 13 weeks there is a reduction in payments to 90% (a step-down), which is followed by a further step-down to 80% at 26 weeks, in line with the reduction that already occurs in South Australia for longer-term claims (ie, claims of a duration of one year or more)...

The existing cap on the maximum weekly amount payable to injured workers (of $2,159.20 indexed) has been retained at the current level of twice the State average weekly earnings, higher than other comparable schemes.

Under the heading of Work Capacity Reviews, the article goes on:

The South Australian workers compensation system was designed to provide rehabilitation support and fair compensation in the short term for all injured workers, and adequate ongoing compensation and support to the most seriously injured. It was not intended to provide ongoing compensation for less seriously injured workers who could return to work.

The article states that the proposed legislation aims to strengthen the test, called the work capacity review, that determines whether an injured worker is entitled to ongoing compensation beyond 130 weeks or 2½ years. The article goes on:

The Victorian model, which would be adopted under this amending legislation, creates an effective test to determine which workers have work capacity and which don't. This test is called a work capacity review. Under the proposed legislation, only those injured workers who have capacity to return to work, but who have failed to do so, have no ongoing entitlement to weekly payments. Those injured workers who have no capacity for work will continue to be sponsored by the scheme. Those injured workers who have returned to work to the extent of their capacity will also continue to receive 'top up' payments until they can fully return to work. This proposal has been assessed as having the most significant impact on the SA scheme's liabilities.

This WorkCover article provides a comparison that considers the timing and the level of step-downs in the weekly payments between the Victorian and the New South Wales scheme and the proposed South Australian changes. These comparisons are set out in a table. I seek leave to have the statistical table incorporated in Hansard without my reading it.

Leave granted.

Comparison of Timing and Level of Step-downs
Period SA (proposed) Vic NSW

0 -13 weeks 100% 95% 100%
($2,159 max) ($1,210 max) ($1,536 max)

13 – 26 weeks 90% 75% 100%
($1,943 max) ($1,210 max) ($1,536 max)

26 – 52 weeks 80% 75% 90%
($1,727 max) ($1,210 max) ($348 max)

52+ weeks 80% 75% 90%
($1,727 max) ($1,210 max) ($348 max)


The Hon. M. PARNELL: I will not read every figure in this table, but what it shows in the three columns is the proposed South Australian regime, the Victorian regime and the New South Wales regime, and the level of payments for the periods up to 13 weeks, 13 to 26 weeks, 26 to 52 weeks and then over 52 weeks.

Putting aside any calculation mistakes that will arise from the overlapping of the different periods contained in the WorkCover comparison table, three fundamental errors remain. The first concerns the comparison with the New South Wales scheme. In what should be the 14 to 26 week period, New South Wales workers with pre-injury award or related earnings of $1,536 or less would be better off than their South Australian counterparts.

It should also be noted that, during the 27 to 52 week period, injured workers in New South Wales may be eligible to payments greater than the maximum of $348 a week — which is referred to in the table — if they have a dependent spouse or dependent children.

In situations where an injured worker has, for example, two dependent children and a dependent spouse, he or she would be entitled to weekly payments of $585. Similarly in the case of an injured worker with three dependent children, he or she would be entitled to $591 a week. This means that they would be better off than South Australian workers with pre-injury earnings less than $730 week and off work between 27 and 52 weeks. It is important to note that, as low paid workers make up a substantial proportion of injured workers, this is an important consideration when we make these interstate comparisons.

The second problem with the WorkCover comparisons is that they are confined to only two other jurisdiction, that is, jurisdictions that both WorkCover and the government have selectively chosen in order to boost their case. Even so, as I have indicated, many lower paid injured workers in New South Wales would still be better off than their South Australian counterparts if this legislation is passed. If payments to injured workers in other jurisdictions, including Queensland and Tasmania, are included, it becomes apparent that South Australian workers will, in many circumstances, be worse off by comparison, courtesy of this government's legislation.

In Queensland, workers covered by an award or other industrial instrument are entitled to weekly payments that are 100 per cent of the pre-injury earnings for the first 26 weeks of incapacity, whereas in South Australia payments will be cut to 90 per cent after 13 weeks. In Tasmania, weekly payments are set at 100 per cent of pre-injury earnings for the first 13 weeks of incapacity; 85 per cent from 14 to 78 weeks; and 80 per cent thereafter for another 7½ years. Other than for South Australian workers with no work capacity whatsoever, or those unable to return to work from 14 to 26 weeks, workers injured in Tasmania would receive higher levels of weekly payments. It is really important that we understand that the spin around this being the fairer system does not hold up to analysis when you go through the figures.

The third problem is that the WorkCover comparisons are based on 'point in time' comparisons. Although this approach is not without some value, a more useful approach is to examine payments to injured workers over time as it more adequately captures the impact of step-downs on the amount of compensation received overall by injured workers. It also helps to consider the impact of weekly payment arrangements on workers with different pre-injury income levels as this assists in obtaining a better picture of the extent to which weekly payments compensate for the loss of pre-injury earnings.

I am indebted to the Public Service Association of South Australia for providing me with a table and associated commentary, which provides details on weekly payments for all Australian state and territory schemes, based on comparisons over time. I seek leave to have the statistical table incorporate in Hansard without my reading it.

Leave granted.

Weekly Payments Replacement Ratios

Level of pre-
injury income
NSW Vic Qld WA SA1 SA2 Tas NT ACT Aus Gov


13 weeks of incapacity
Low
Income 100 95 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100

Middle 80 95 85 100 100 100 100 100 100 100
Income

26 weeks of incapacity

Low 100 85 100 100 100 95 93 100 100 100
Income

Middle 80 85 85 93 100 95 93 100 100 100
Income


52 weeks of incapacity

Low 100 80 100 100 100 88 89 95 97 99
Income

Middle 69 80 80 89 100 88 89 89 83 97
Income


104 weeks of incapacity

Low 100 78 100 100 90 84 87 93 95 94
Income

Middle 63 78 73 87 90 84 87 83 74 86
Income


120 weeks of incapacity

Low 100 77 100 100 89 83 86 92 95 94
Income

Middle 62 77 72 87 89 83 86 83 73 84
Income


The Hon. M. PARNELL: For South Australia, two scenarios are included in this analysis. The first (SA1) is based on existing entitlements and the second (SA2) is based on those contained in the bill. The results that are presented in this table, other than for SA2, are derived from data that was published by the Workplace Relations Ministers Council in February 2008. So they are very current figures.

The table shows the earnings replacement ratios for two categories of injured workers during selected periods of incapacity for work. The earnings replacement ratio is defined as the percentage of earnings compensated for by weekly payments. The higher the ratio the more adequately injured workers are compensated. Conversely, a lower replacement ratio reflects a lower level of compensation. Injured workers with pre-injury earnings of $500 per week constitute the lower income category, while those on $1,000 per week make up the middle income group. These two income categories cover the overwhelming majority of injured workers in receipt of weekly payments.

In keeping with the approach adopted by the Workplace Relations Ministers Council, it is assumed that low-income workers are covered by industrial awards, while middle income earners are award free. This distinction is relevant because in some jurisdictions, such as New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia, compensation in the case of work-related injury provides full earnings coverage for workers employed under awards. While the table does not capture the full extent of differences in the adequacy of weekly payments available to injured workers between the state, territory and federal government schemes, it does enable indicative comparisons to be made. For the first 13 weeks, low income workers in all Australian jurisdictions, other than Victoria, have a replacement ratio of 100 per cent. With middle income workers, the replacement ratio is also 100 per cent in most jurisdictions. The only exceptions are Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland.

When we look at weekly payments at 26 weeks, we see that if the period of incapacity extends to 26 weeks, six jurisdictions (including South Australia) have a replacement ratio of 100 per cent for low income workers, followed by Tasmania with 93 per cent and Victoria with 85 per cent. In South Australia's case, the replacement ratio would fall to 95 per cent if the current bill is passed. For middle income workers only four jurisdictions, including South Australia, would maintain a replacement ratio of 100 per cent. These jurisdictions would be followed by Tasmania and Western Australia with a replacement ratio of 93 per cent, Victoria and Queensland with 85 per cent, and New South Wales with 80 per cent. Under the bill, the South Australian replacement ratio would fall to 95 per cent.

When the period of incapacity covers 52 weeks, low income workers would have a replacement ratio of 100 per cent in four jurisdictions—New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia—although in South Australia's case, it would fall to 88 per cent if the bill is passed. In the other jurisdictions, the replacement ratio would range from 99 per cent for Australian government workers to 80 per cent for those in Victoria. As to middle income workers off work for 12 months, South Australia at 100 per cent currently provides the highest replacement ratio, followed closely by the Australian government's Comcare scheme at 97 per cent, with New South Wales bringing up the rear on 69 per cent. However, if the bill is passed, the South Australian ratio would drop from first place to fifth place.

So, you can see that when you look properly at the figures, the myth of South Australian workers being better off under this scheme is seen to be just that—a myth. If low income workers are unable to return to work 104 weeks after injury, only Western Australia, New South Wales and Queensland provide a replacement ratio of 100 per cent, followed by the ACT, Comcare and the Northern Territory. The replacement ratio in South Australia is 90 per cent but would fall to 84 per cent if the bill is passed—the second lowest after Victoria at 78 per cent.

For middle income workers, South Australia's replacement ratio of 90 per cent is the highest, followed by Western Australia, Tasmania and Comcare. Once again, New South Wales has the lowest replacement ratio for middle income workers. If the bill is passed, South Australia's replacement ratio would fall to 84 per cent. At 120 weeks of incapacity, Western Australia, New South Wales and Queensland still have a 100 per cent replacement ratio for low income workers whereas South Australia at 89 per cent has the second lowest. In the case of middle income workers, South Australia has the highest replacement ratio, followed closely by Western Australia and Tasmania. However, if the bill is passed, the South Australian replacement ratio will fall to 83 per cent and slip below those of Tasmania and Western Australia.

If we keep going through this analysis and we go beyond 120 weeks of incapacity, or even earlier in some jurisdictions, the picture changes yet again. In several jurisdictions, including New South Wales, Victoria and the Northern Territory, deeming arrangements exist whereby weekly payments to injured workers can be discontinued by means of work capacity reviews. To date, the harshest approach has been adopted in Victoria where work capacity reviews are applied. All injured workers other than those who are deemed to be totally incapacitated have the payments dramatically reduced or terminated. This includes most workers with indisputably serious injuries. For the small minority deemed totally incapacitated, weekly payments continue, usually to retirement age.

In other jurisdictions such as Western Australia, Queensland and Tasmania, work capacity reviews are not used to terminate the entitlement of workers to weekly payments. In Western Australia and Queensland payments continue until a maximum prescribed sum is reached. In Western Australia the maximum is currently $152,070 while in Queensland it is $218,400. For low income Western Australian workers with an ongoing incapacity, this is equivalent to receiving weekly payments for a period of up to 304 weeks, while for middle income workers it would be a maximum of 152 weeks. In Queensland, eligibility for weekly payments extends for up to 435 weeks in the case of low income workers and 218 weeks in the case of middle income workers. Tasmanian workers' weekly payments may continue, irrespective of income levels, for up to 504 weeks.

At present, South Australian workers with an ongoing incapacity for work are usually entitled to continuing weekly payments. Consequently, weekly payments for this category of workers compare more than favourably with their counterparts in other jurisdictions; however, under the government's proposals this would cease to be the case. All but the most severely injured would have substantial reductions or discontinuation of weekly payments, and would be considerably worse off than their counterparts in Western Australia, Queensland and Tasmania.

Weekly payments for South Australian injured workers unable to return to work beyond 120 weeks compare favourably with workers with similar injuries in other jurisdictions. For low income workers unable to return to work at 120 weeks following injury, Western Australia, New South Wales and Queensland provide the highest replacement ratios. They are joined by South Australia, where the time off work is 52 weeks. For periods less than this, all but two of the state and territory schemes provide a replacement ratio of 100 per cent.

For middle income workers, South Australia currently has the highest replacement ratio over all five incapacity periods followed by Comcare, Western Australia and Tasmania, with New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria having the lowest. With the cuts proposed by this legislation, the position of most categories of injured workers in South Australia deteriorates, both in absolute terms and in comparison with interstate counterparts.

I now turn to a consideration of payment for non-economic loss. The WorkCover article referred to earlier also contains a number of statements and claims in relation to non-economic loss payments for personal injury or death. It states:

All workers compensation schemes provide for one-off 'lump sum' payments to injured workers who have suffered permanent injury or illness, called non-economic loss. The lump sum payment is in addition to the weekly payments made to an injured worker. The proposed legislation aims to replicate the Victorian provisions for non-economic loss payments, but with a significant increase in the maximum amount payable to workers who suffer a permanent injury or illness — from the current SA maximum of $230,982 to $400,000...

The introduction of a threshold for non-economic loss — 5 per cent for physical injury, below which there is no entitlement to payment is also included. This means that those workers who suffer minor permanent injuries will be entitled to lesser or no payment for non-economic loss, but those workers who suffer a moderate to serious permanent injury will receive much more generous compensation. In addition, the Vic scheme's provisions for payments in the event of death — considered by the reviewer as the 'most comprehensive of any Australian jurisdiction' — are proposed with a maximum entitlement of $400,000.

In relation to non-economic loss for permanent injury, the government's proposal is, on paper, a significant increase. However, it is also apparent that the number of workers who will be eligible for the $400,000 maximum will be minuscule. Moreover, the government's proposed threshold will have the effect, year in year out, of denying hundreds of injured workers who would otherwise be entitled to lump sum payments for permanent impairment. Most significantly, the proposals currently in this bill are actually designed to cut the amount of compensation available for permanent injury—which is in line with the Clayton Walsh recommendations.

Claims surrounding the proposed increase in lump sum payments to the families of injured workers, in the event of death, are also misleading. While the Greens welcome the proposed increase in compensation to workers' families (where they are killed as a result of their employment), it should be noted that the scheme with the highest payment in this area is New South Wales — not Victoria or South Australia — where workers' families receive a lump sum of $425,000.

Any discussion on workers compensation entitlements also needs to consider the issue of common law — as I have said; that right for people to get more compensation by taking their negligent employers to court. All Australian states, except South Australia, provide workers with access in one form or another to common law damages where the injuries are the result of negligence by their employers. The importance of common law can be seen from another table that was provided to me by the Public Service Association, and I seek leave to have this additional table inserted in Hansard without my reading it.

Leave granted.

Common Law Payments 2006-07

NSW¹ Vic Qld WA Tas

Common Law Payments ($) $190.0M $372.3M $270.3M $65.6M $5.2M

Common Law Payments (%) 11.4 28.4 41.4 13.7 5.2

1. The latest NSW data is only available for 2005/2006

The Hon. M. PARNELL: The first row of the table shows the amounts paid out by interstate schemes in common law damages. At the top end of the range is the Victorian WorkCover Authority, which paid out $372.3 million for common law claims in 2007; whereas, at the lower end, WorkCover Tasmania paid out only $5.2 million. The second row of the table presents common law damages as a proportion of total claims costs as an indicator that captures the overall significance of common law in each of the different schemes. The higher the proportion, the more crucial is the role of common law as a scheme-designed feature.

As will be apparent when members see the table, common law plays only a minor role in the Tasmanian scheme, a moderate role in the New South Wales and Western Australian schemes, and a prominent role in those of Queensland and Victoria. In policy terms, much of the current bill before the South Australian parliament, as I have said, is based on the 1992 Victorian legislation introduced by Jeff Kennett. This is in line with the views expressed by both the Clayton Walsh review and the Labor government here, that South Australia's WorkCover scheme needs to be realigned with its Victorian counterpart.

In doing so, however, the government has conspicuously avoided any overtures that would enable South Australian workers to seek damages where their injuries are attributable to the negligence of their employers. This only serves to further undermine any pretence that this legislation is concerned with fairness.

What are we to make of the government's claims that the WorkCover bill currently before this council will ensure that South Australian workers compensation schemes will remain the fairest in the country? I think it is clear that the detailed comparisons, which I have read out and which will appear in Hansard when the tables are published, show that we are not. What I say on behalf of the Greens is that we agree with the trade union movement and other community organisations whose views are adequately summarised, I think, in some comments from the Public Service Association. It states:

When considered in context, claims by the Premier and his Minister for Industrial Relations, that the passage of Labor's workers compensation bill would leave South Australia's WorkCover scheme as the fairest in the country are untenable. These claims lack substance and they are not supported by the evidence. Such claims may be best regarded as a cynical exercise in political spin designed to obscure what, in reality, is a draconian assault on the entitlement of injured workers in this state.

Instead of having arguably one of Australia's best schemes of weekly payments for injured workers, the government's legislation, if passed, would ensure that most South Australians seriously injured at work would have their payments dramatically reduced or discontinued should they have the misfortune of being unable to return to work within 130 weeks. The fact that all other this state workers compensation schemes in Australia provide injured workers with access to common law damages reinforces the lack of fairness that is at the heart of the government's bill. Instead of being one of the country's best schemes, WorkCover looks like it could end up as Clayton's scheme.

I think that that summarises why the scheme will not be the fairest scheme. In launching this attack on injured workers, I think that Premier Rann is doing his best to be a carbon copy of a Liberal. He is copying ex-prime minister Howard's attack on working families but, in the context of this bill, Premier Rann is paying tribute to ex-Victorian premier Jeff Kennett. He has taken Jeff Kennett's WorkCover legislation to the photocopier, run off a few copies and done a couple of quick edits and, here we are; we have the Jeff Kennett/Hon. Mike Rann WorkCover plan.

Of course, in Victoria, the Labor government there seems to have some Labor principles and some interest in what happens to the sick and injured and, in the context here, workers who are made sick or injured in trying to earn a living. In Victoria, on its election the Labor government reintroduced serious employer negligence rights. It changed the Kennett plan so that it delivered more for injured workers—but not here.

If you can bear with me for a couple of seconds, Mr President, I will take a sip of water. I think there may be some material I can defer to the committee stage.

The Hon. D.W. Ridgway: Drinking on the job.

The Hon. M. PARNELL: The Hon. David Ridgway says that I am drinking on the job.

An honourable member: Breath test him!

The Hon. M. PARNELL: I would be more than delighted to meet any member of the constabulary with a breath testing machine, as has been suggested, and breathe into it.

I want to make sure that I get onto the record what I promised to a large number of injured workers, that is, their stories of their experience with WorkCover, and I think that I can get to them fairly briefly. What I will leave to the committee stage is a consideration of the question of retrospectivity. It is an important issue, but we will deal with it in committee.

I have also received a large number of additional submissions in which people have said, 'Can you tell the parliament what we think about WorkCover?' and asked me to go through it all. I do not propose to do so. I want to acknowledge these submissions, but I will not read them all into Hansard.

The Local Government Association has written to me with a prepared a submission; in fact, it has faxed it to all honourable members and, as they have it available to them, I will not read it out. I have also received a submission from Mediation and Employment Relations Services, which raises an issue I have not yet mentioned (but perhaps we will get to it at the committee stage) concerning its frustration in dealing with the decision of the WorkCover board in 2004 to cease funding mediation services. It is keen to see those sensible improvements, as they see them, reintroduced.

I have received submissions (as perhaps other members have) from Group Training Australia (SA) Inc. It has written to me in relation to a concern about the impact of levies in respect of so-called third parties in particular, because the group training scheme is a complex arrangement that involves some direct employment and some indirect employment. We will agitate those issues when we get to the committee stage.

I have received a submission from Self-Insurers of South Australia. Its issue is fairly simple, but complex. It is unhappy at not having been consulted about the legislation, but it is not Robinson Crusoe there. It joins a long list of people who were not consulted. It is keen to see this legislation remove exit fees for people who want to be removed from the WorkCover scheme and go to a self‑insurance scheme. That is its issue, which we will have to look at when we get to the committee stage.

One correspondent with whom we all are familiar is a frequent flyer when it comes to correspondence; he is one of the most prolific I have come across. Phil Moir has sent me many emails. I will not read them all because that would severely test the patience of this council. He has developed a couple of themes to which I would like to refer. His perspective was mentioned by the member for Morphett in the other place in his lengthy contribution on the bill. Phil Moir said:

Bruce Carter and his WorkCover media liaison unit have consistently sought to reject claims that in early 2000 WorkCover developed a pilot policy of minimising the amount of redemptions paid, which had the effect of trapping more permanently injured workers on benefits, in turn creating the massive liability we now face. Bruce Carter's denials are despite the pilot strategy being openly discussed in some detail in the 2001-02 annual report. In that 2001-02 financial year management developed and piloted a strategy to proactively achieve higher return-to-work outcomes in the first six months of a claim, thereby reducing the emphasis on redemptions. The effect of non-redemption discontinuance was reflected in the actuary's assumptions for that year.

That is one of the themes that Phil Moir has raised; other correspondents have raised the appropriate role of redemptions in the scheme, as well. I will not go through all this, but certainly he is a person who has some in-depth knowledge as a result of his own experiences and his research into the WorkCover scheme. One of his pieces of correspondence states:

The solution is equally simple. If WorkCover were to draw a line in the sand and assess as a capital loss on the 179 annually 36-month plus figure the liability would stop increasing immediately, but for the indexation on the $2.3 billion group. If they were also to take $500 million out of their $1.5 billion bank account, they could take the $2.3 billion outstanding claims liability down by at least a billion even more. It isn't rocket science: it is accounting. The trouble is that it has become a battle to defend [meaning WorkCover's poor decisions], well aware that admitting they got it wrong and ignoring the actuary in 2003 should cost them their jobs.

I will work on the assumption that most members have access to his correspondence, so I will not go into it.

I now want to touch briefly on the question of who are the claimants. Who is it we are talking about in terms of WorkCover? I refer members, who want a detailed analysis of which industries feature in WorkCover claims and the types of claims, to the Australian Safety and Compensation Council's 2006 report entitled 'Estimating the number of work-related traumatic industry fatalities in Australia 2003-04'.

To summarise that report, it will not surprise members to know that the people who work in industries involving physical work were at higher risk of experiencing a work-related injury. In 2005‑06, the industries recording the highest injury rates were agriculture, forestry and fishing. Those groups represented 109 per 1,000 employed, so just over 10 per cent. Manufacturing represented 87 per 1,000 employed and construction, 86 per 1,000. These higher risk industries were typically male dominated.

As I have said, Industries with the highest work-related injury rates for men are agriculture, forestry and fishery, but then you also have personal and other services at 101 per 1,000 workers; manufacturing at 98 per 1,000 workers; and almost two-thirds (65 per cent) of men working in personal and other service industries worked for public order and safety services, including police services. They are the members of the Public Service Association who have been prominent in the campaign.

In relation to women, the main areas for work-related injuries were accommodation, cafes and restaurants at 98 per 1,000 employed women; health and community services, 71 per 1,000; and retail 70 per 1,000. In terms of occupation groups, the highest injury rates were intermediate production and transport workers at 108 per 1,000 employed; tradesperson and related workers at 107 per 1,000 employed; and labourers and related workers, 106 per 1,000 employed. These three occupations accounted for more than two-fifths of all injured workers, yet represented only 29 per cent of all employed persons.

I will not go through other figures. The take-home message is the people involved in manual handling were particularly at risk, and we all know of lower back and neck injuries that are common in those areas. I will refer to a couple of specific categories, in particular hospital workers. Members may have seen an article in The Advertiser last year that said that the number of hospital workers injured at work has more than quadrupled in the past three years. What an outrageous statistic that is. The article states:

The latest WorkCover figures show 305 claims were made in 2003-04 but that surged to 1,475 claims in the year 2006-07.

That made it the industry with the most claims. I will not read the rest of the article but it refers to lower back injuries as being the most common, making up 15 per cent of claims, and that the most common cause of injuries was handling, lifting, carrying or putting down objects. There are various reactions to these appalling figures from the Nurses Federation and others.

If we look at a group like teachers, then we can also see that the figures have increased. I refer to a report by Michael Owen in The Advertiser last year (10 January 2007) titled 'Stress toll mounts for teachers'. It states:

Private school teachers are lodging compensation claims at an increasing rate, with a teachers union warning that mental stress claims due to bullying and work pressure are at record levels. WorkCover SA documents obtained by The Advertiser under Freedom of Information laws show that during the first six months of last year, there were 71 claims lodged, including six involving mental disorders.

The data also shows that the number of claims has increased in recent years, with 76 claims in 2002, 74 claims in 2003, and up to 92 claims in 2005. Again, I will not go through that whole article, but members can see that, whilst teachers might not be in the same risk categories in terms of the manual lifting that they have to do, they are still vulnerable to what are clearly work related conditions that relate to their mental health.

I also refer to a couple of examples that come out of the public education sector, in particular, the Department of Education and Children's Services (DECS) and the Department of Further Education, Employment, Science and Technology (DFEEST). These examples that I will read are real examples, but to protect their identity, a few details such as age and gender have been changed. The first one, a broken back. A 50 year old female teacher suffered a broken back after falling down stairs while trying to stop two male students from fighting. She was assessed as having a 30 per cent permanent disability to her lower back. She has endured two operations and has significant scarring. She is currently only able to return to work part time and lives with constant pain. She has developed depression, and who wouldn't.

Another case is one of post traumatic stress disorder. A 45 year old female teacher who worked in a tough school — in fact, she worked in many tough schools for many years — suffered post traumatic stress disorder after being punched in the face by a male high school student. She was unable to return to the school where she was attacked. Effective rehabilitation and return to work was hampered by the Department of Education and Children's Services being unable to find her anything other than temporary replacement in schools. As a temporarily placed teacher, she was unable to develop the professional support networks that she needed to rebuild her confidence and, after four years of temporary placements and continuous frustrations, she quit teaching.

Another example is a case of golden staph infection in a school services officer, an SS0. A 40 year old male SSO, who works with special needs students, suffered a leg injury in the course of employment. After surgery he contracted golden staph infection which spread throughout his body. He was unable to return to pre-injury duties and was only able to return —

The Hon. A. BRESSINGTON: Mr President, I draw your attention to the state of the council.

A quorum having been formed:

The Hon. M. PARNELL: I will not go through any more of those examples, but I reiterate that they are real people and I thank the PSA or the Australian Education Union which provided them to my office.

In January 2007, The Advertiser reported that road and workplace injury claims were already dropping. The article states:

The number of road and workplace injury claims has fallen in South Australia, a newly-released state government report shows. TRACsa, the government's new centre of excellence for trauma and injury management, commissioned the social health atlas of compensable injury in South Australia to help identify factors that potentially impact on recovery from road and workplace trauma. While more road injury claims are made each year by females, the average cost per claim is higher for men, while almost three-quarters of workers compensation claims are made by men.

So we can see that some trends are emerging here. What we know, if we want to look at some comparison between the road trauma and its impact on society and workplace trauma, is that about 10,000 people in South Australia are injured on our roads, while another 46,500 will experience a work-related injury or illness. Minister Wright claimed in 2007:

Australia currently ranks in the top five countries for reducing work-related deaths, with a 36 per cent decrease in compensated fatalities since 1996.

He also said:

Australia is also making progress in reducing work-related injuries and diseases, with a 13 per cent decrease in accepted compensation claims since 1996.

The reason for quoting those statistics is that, if we are, indeed, doing better when it comes to workplace injuries, why is the current debate over the state of WorkCover being framed as the fault of workers? It is counter-intuitive if, in fact, these claims are dropping.

I said earlier that I wanted to ensure that I got into Hansard some of the stories that people have come to me saying they want their elected members to be aware of, and I will go through some of those. However, before I do that, I would like to acknowledge one organisation in particular, and that is the organisation known as VOID, which stands for the Voice of Industrial Death. For the benefit of the community, they have put a lot of their stories on their website.

I was also very pleased to discuss this legislation and this issue with Andrea Madeley, who is the chief spokesperson for that group. I was very pleased to join her and a number of members of parliament, and others, at the International Workers Memorial Day service just a week or two ago. My first contact with Andrea Madeley was when she made her speech on the steps of Parliament House during the CMFEU rally, and no-one who heard her words on that day could fail to have been moved by the passion which was borne out of her personal tragic circumstances in relation to her son. The Voice of Industrial Death website states, in relation to this legislation and this issue:

Irrespective of the degree of negligence or the culpability of the employer, WorkCover remains the only source of compensation for family. That compensation is only available to those completely dependent on the deceased and, even then, the organisation will do its mighty best to get out of paying.

These are people who have lost a loved one to an industrial accident or illness. The website continues:

I suspect most South Australians would have no idea what the widows of killed workers are put through in order to get some assistance from WorkCover. Try to imagine what it must feel like to suddenly be faced with the shock of losing a loved one, then add to this the realisation that the safety net you thought was there isn't really there at all. The mind and body go through major trauma as the shock of death sinks in. The capacity to think in a straight line is severely disabled. The ability to prioritise and organise becomes increasingly perplexed, and none of this disappears in a hurry. In fact, it can gather some momentum as the weeks turn into months—enter WorkCover eventually. The organisation is not concerned with such frivolous issues as grief, hardship or despair. Their primary goal is to reduce liability, not to feel sorry for people. We wish more South Australians were aware of how grieving family members are treated by WorkCover and Employers Mutual. At a time when people are least equipped to cope they are most abused. At VOID we have yet to find a positive word said about WorkCover. Widows are retraumatised over and over again, having to hunt down lawyers just so they can access what should be rightfully theirs. Few would walk into something like this with any understanding of how the claims process works. The only thing we can do here is try to prepare people a little better.

To illustrate that general point, the VOID website includes a series of what it calls 'shame files'. I will not read them out, but there is story after story with a single common theme, that is, the poor practice and administration of WorkCover. It is a theme which I have touched on already but which we will go into in much more detail when we get to the committee stage.

I would now like to include some of the personal stories, and I do this to keep faith with those injured workers who took the trouble to write to me as they have written to other members. Their stories cannot be told any other way that will influence this legislation if we do not do it in this place. Most of the people would prefer me not to use their names, so I will honour that. One letter states:

I am a 33 year old father of one beautiful four year old and have a great partner. Well, where do I start? I will try to tell my story so that it does not take forever. My lower back was injured 2½ years ago lifting 20-kilogram plus buckets of product to shoulder height and doing that some 500 times a day. The rest of the time I could be lifting seven to 10 tonnes a day, doing 10 to 12 hours a day five to six days a week, and I was full-time. Now I don't even have a job and I'm flat out doing three to four hours manual labour. On the day I hurt my back I reported it to my supervisor, as you should, and continued to work. I continued working for about two weeks trying not to hurt it bad enough to avoid ending up the doctors and on the WorkCover system, but failed. I got up for work one day and tried to put on my work boots and it completely went on me.

I went to work and I walked in with my torso at nearly a 45 degree angle sideways and barely able to walk. They sent me home and told me to get to a doctor. There were weeks after that where I could not even get out of bed because the pain was immense and kept me awake for nights on end. I only had mild pain killers because I am normally one that tries not to take medication, and I believe that I would like to know where my limits are and not to mask them. This went on for months and I had some hands-off physio with very little success. I ended up doing hands-on physio and a Pilates program with what I feel has had limited effect.

I have in my time on WorkCover found myself sliding towards alcoholism for a few months but managed to pull away from that demon. Ending up on anti-depressants and seeing a psychologist was what I considered to be the lowest part of being on WorkCover. I have been abused by bosses, workers and rehab consultants. Then all the crap started to happen about a year into being on WorkCover. My co-workers started to treat me differently. My bosses made my life hell, putting me into any position they could, and if I had problems they would just put me further down onto weaker duties, which you can sort of understand. After a while they started to give me just paperwork.

I went along with this until I could get the work done in half an hour or so when they were saying it would take a few hours. I would then go and see the manager to see what he would like me do and he would say, 'Oh, go and have a cup of tea and I will come up and get you.'

I would then sit there for hours, and when I would try to find him he was nowhere to be found. This happened a few times, and this is when I nearly lost it and ended up seeing the psychologist. I had a number of weeks off work because I was immensely depressed and upset.

When I went back to work they said it would be different, but it was not. It happened all over again. So I rang EML and they told me to get out of there and they would try and sort it out. This was around February/March 2007. At this point I lawyered up. The next thing I know, my employer was bought out by another company and they gave everyone a document saying it was to be signed and handed back. The document said that we were resigning from the previous employment and to undergo a medical to be taken on by the new company.

My lawyer told me not to sign it, so I didn't, as I was effectively resigning and that would put everything in jeopardy. I told the new employer that I would not pass a medical in my current condition, and they said that they were not in a position to employ me. WorkCover tried to do something about it, but on April 1 2007 they took over the company and I and four others were told that we no longer had a job. That was the first time I was unemployed in over 10 years. I was told by WorkCover that I should receive a severance pay, but got nothing.

I sat around doing nothing until I found a job being the SA sales rep for a company selling products to students and clients in South Australia. I put myself through the training and now I am an accredited artist [he was a salesman and an artist]. I paid for this training, not WorkCover. As a result, I have become a big part of this industry. Everyone was stoked — me, my family, the doc, psychologist and so on.

This was a commission only based job and I got paid at the end of the month. I told EML and kept them up‑to-date with everything, but it seemed to be just too hard for them to keep up with the paperwork and they told me to quit the job, as they could not handle it. When I told them that I had earned a couple of hundred dollars for the month, they took it out of my pay, which was cool, but they stuffed my pay up for three weeks that bad that I even defaulted on my loan and was charged for it even though they said that they would pay it back. But they never did.

After four months I got a job through the rehab I was now with. EML and WorkCover now had me on a program called RISE, where the employer got incentives in wage subsidies, bonuses and aid to keep me employed. I had some problems with my back but did not miss a day and was working long days just to try and keep the job. I was made full-time after about four weeks and thought things were going well. Then things started to get a little quiet at work and WorkCover was not yet paying them the incentives.

After about eight weeks the employer said that they could not afford to keep me on as they were not getting paid, so they let me go. I rang EML the next day and told them what was going on. In reply, EML said that they had paid my employer on the day they sacked me and I would have a strong case for wrongful dismissal. EML also said that I would be put on a fast track employment scheme, and that was in October 2007. They started to do something in February 2008. I told my lawyer, and that is as far as it went.

I have tried everything in the last 12 months to get my case across to whoever would listen — radio, Today Tonight, A Current Affair, newspapers, members of parliament, doctors and my lawyer. You name it, I've tried it. Sitting around with a bad back and not being able to do much, I have put on a lot of weight, which does not help. But EML don't want me to do anything about it. They are, however, content to call me morbidly obese.

I have had heated exchanges with rehab consultants to the point where they have threatened to cut me off WorkCover. I have seen a number of specialists and had an MRI, and I still do not have a definite answer as to what is wrong. They say there are some lesions in the MRI, and a lot seemed to point to facet joint damage. I still have pain every day and cannot sleep properly.

I have had so many case managers it's not funny — some okay, some can't even get my appointments right. I have tried to claim for fuel and other expenses and they just send back the paperwork and ask me to get everything signed. It's been bad enough in the past. I don't want to know what the future holds for me and my family. I really want to see a great future for my family but who is going to compensate them for all the crap they have had to put up with?

I don't want anyone to feel sorry for me. I just want to have a normal life again, one where we don't live in fear and darkness. I mean, hell, I have not had a super payment since October 2006.

There are many little things not said but the bigger things are what I wanted to get out there. I hope this is not the end for us and that we can fight the injustice of the government, EML and WorkCover. I am here to speak out and I will stand up for all if I have to.

That is a person who has struggled under the current system, but as a long-term recipient of WorkCover I would be very fearful for his future under the new regime.

One of the things that I think is common in all the stakeholders to whom I have spoken, whether it is WorkCover itself, the unions, or workers, is a very common theme of injuries to the body quickly migrating to illnesses of the mind, especially depression. WorkCover's response is to say, 'Well, that's why we need to get people straight back to work, because if we get them back to work then their minds will be okay.' But, if you are getting people back to work prematurely, if they are going back to inappropriate jobs, and if they go back and hurt themselves again, then the impact on their mental condition is even more compounded.

There is one other story that I think is important. That last person said that they were treated very differently after having been on compo for a while. I think that by differently the person means with some suspicion. I can recall John Camillo, union secretary of the AMWU talking to me about one of his union members who had a problem with a knee. It was just a knee, and knees are supposed to get better. This person kept saying, 'But, it's still sore. I can't walk; I can't go to work', and was starting to get sideways glances: 'Is this person a bludger? X-rays didn't show anything wrong; they probably are a bludger.' Fellow workers were thinking that this person was probably just having a compo holiday.

Eventually, about a year after the event, as I remember John telling it, he had an arthroscopy, where they get inside and have a look. They found a fragment of bone in amongst the joint. Not that I am a medical person, but a ball and socket type joint with a loose piece of bone floating around in there would cause unbearable pain. This worker insisted on recovering that fragment, putting it in a jar, and parading it around the workplace as proof that they were not a bludger or a malingerer, because that is an assumption that many people made. Another person who wrote to me and wanted me to tell their story states:

I was a full-time sales employee being unfairly criticised and repeatedly victimised by my manager. Because of my employer's actions, including repetitive bullying, I became ill and was unable to work for several months. My GP raised a WorkCover claim which, after a thorough investigation, was approved by Employers Mutual and WorkCover. I attended some very helpful rehabilitation counselling and mediation. In July 2007 I returned to work for my employer. On my return to work my manager immediately recommenced his campaign of harassment towards me. My manager also failed to comply with certain agreements reached through mediation. I continued with all my set conditions in returning to work. During the first two months of my return to work program my employer sacked me. In a letter from EML to me, EML states:

'Employers Mutual Ltd has fully investigated your employer's termination/redundancy of your employment in accordance with section 58C of the act, and we have determined that your employment should not have been terminated. However, based on the circumstances surrounding your claim and the termination/redundancy, Employers Mutual Ltd has determined that our rehabilitation efforts will now focus on locating and maintaining suitable employment with an alternative employer.'

Continuing the letter:

Unfortunately, it took me 85 job applications and many interviews to secure alternative employment. However, I now have a new job, and I look forward to rebuilding my career. As my new employment pays less than my pre-injury employment, EML supplements my average weekly earnings. I do not know if this will continue with the proposed changes.

I am conscious that members of the Statutory Authorities Review Committee have also been inundated with similar stories. I imagine that the Hon. Ann Bressington will probably want to refer to some of those in her contribution. I will refer briefly to a few of them. In one case a man was not able to write to me; so he dictated his story to one of my staff. The notes to me state:

He was threatened at the workplace; forced to do unsafe work; faced with the prospect of unemployment if he didn't do the work. Went to supervisor at the beginning of his shift and complained about the seating in the mining vehicle.

So, clearly, this is a mining case. It continues:

His supervisor told him to operate it or eff off. Supervisor then drove away from site. He felt he had no option but to drive the vehicle, otherwise he would face the possibility of unemployment. It was a 27-tonne Caterpillar mining truck. The seat inside the truck had no suspension. The truck drove over a ditch, which forced this person to be thrown into the air, hitting the steel roof and then slam back down on the seat with force, causing compression through his spine. He felt crushing from the tip of his buttocks right through to his head and suffered instant headaches and pain.

He was taken to the company GP, who tried to tell him it was just a lumbar muscle strain and sent him back to work to perform light duties, without any investigation. He then lodged a WorkCover claim and a rehabilitation provider was made available. Because of his claim he was subsequently sent to a specialist, who performed MRI scans of his spine, which showed spinal compression. The insurance specialist said that he shouldn't be sent to work until investigations were complete. His GP ignored this and he was sent back to work, where he had to perform duties that were inappropriate for his physical and mental state. Contrary to specialist recommendations of 12 to 18 months rehab, he was told to keep working and was never given the opportunity of rehab.

He found working very hard. He couldn't even bend over to tie up his steel cap boots, and his manager would attack him, telling him to do his boots up. He suffered further injury while doing light work, an ankle injury due to his employer, again, not providing safe working conditions. He had four days off after this second injury and when he returned to work he was being verbally attacked by the employer and other employees turned on him. The employer destroyed any chance of rehabilitation. They were unaccepting of the situation and didn't want him to have a day off work as it meant their lost time injury record would be affected, which relates to their insurance premiums. When he returned to work, after the four days off, a quarry manager met him at the front gate and said, 'Good on you, mate, you've effed up our seven-year lost time injury record.' He was made to feel guilty.

He is currently being advised by the tribunal, saying if he doesn't accept what they are offering then he can be left with nothing. He should take the redemption package or risk the new legislation, as it involves a review panel of three doctors who review claims, and there is no right of appeal of the decision, or no reviewing. He feels the redemption package they are offering is just a very sad attempt at pushing him out the door. He has been left below the poverty line, without any assistance. WorkCover will not recognise medical experts' recommendations, instead they drag it out and spend money on achieving nothing for the injured worker. After 3¼ years fighting this, he has just come out with more troubles, including hip and knee pain.

I thank my staff for taking that. He rang back again with a couple more sentences. He said:

Insurers have signed rehabilitations programs with the objective of restoring a person back into the community and the workforce and then when they get the reports from the medical specialists and they don't like what they see they sack the rehab provider and dishonour the signed rehab program, instead of sending everything to court.

He says that he has had $100,000 in legal fees, and $22,000 in expenses. He just wants the problem solved so that he can stop the pain and suffering and get back to work.

There is a very lengthy email that I will not read in full but, in deference to the person who has sent it to me, I will read just a couple of sentences, as follows:

One of the things that I cannot comprehend and I am annoyed about the most is the 'bumping up of accounts' that occurs from companies providing services to injured workers. purely because they are dealing with the WorkCover Corporation.

So, the injured workers are not just looking at it from their point of view. They are also looking at the bigger picture, and seeing what they regard as abuses of the process through providers to the system. This person who wrote to me — and I said I would not read it all out — has been on the WorkCover system for 10 years. Just to put it in context, this person says:

I initially suffered an injury whilst working and have now gone on to more extensive long-term and permanent medical problems after a doctor who was working as an agent for WorkCover prescribed contra-indicating medications. Every medical review that I have undergone whether through my own private medical consultants or those specialists nominated by WorkCover now state that I have no capacity to work and it is unlikely in their opinions that I will ever have capacity to return to any form of employment.

The bulk of the letter goes on to describe that person's experiences. It may be, if that is the case, that they will be okay under the system if they are so seriously injured, but the level of anxiety in the community, the level of uncertainty and especially the fact that, with these medical panels, a second opinion might be contrary to that—it might be, 'Well, you do have some capacity to work' — causes great uncertainty and great unfairness.

The PRESIDENT: Is the honourable member going to be much longer? I would like to know whether we can give the chamber staff a short break.

The Hon. M. PARNELL: I think the chamber staff being given a short break now would be appropriate. I do not imagine that I will take more than another hour or so. A break now would be appropriate, if I seek leave to continue.

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY: That's seven hours. This is the longest speech the Legislative Council has ever heard.

The Hon. M. PARNELL: The minister says 'the longest speech the Legislative Council has ever heard.'

There being a disturbance in the gallery:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. M. PARNELL: This government is proposing to take $1 billion out of the pockets of injured workers and give it to the employers with this myth of reducing the unfunded liability to keep the AAA credit rating. I am being told that, as an elected member, I am inappropriate —

The PRESIDENT: Order! I asked the honourable member how much longer he thought he would be. I think the chamber staff deserve a break for 10 minutes.

The Hon. D.W. Ridgway interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: That is why I asked him how much longer he would be.

The Hon. M. PARNELL: I think I might be another hour. One of the advantages of taking a brief break now is that I can reflect on the notes that I have, and I might be more able to reduce the content. It will not increase over that time, I can tell you, Mr President. I think it is appropriate to take a brief break now and I will spend that time looking at whether I can reduce my contribution.

[Sitting suspended from 22:09 to 22:20]


The Hon. M. PARNELL: As I suggested before the break, I have taken the opportunity to go through much of the material that I intended to put on the record and have made substantial cuts to that material. Much of it will come out in the committee stage, but I think the break has saved us some time. I do not make any apology for the length of time that this is taking, but I am conscious that it is late. We are doing what the government asked us to do: we are debating the WorkCover legislation.

There are only three or four more themes that I want to continue, but I want to just go through a few more personal experiences that were sent to me. I will then move on to look at the unfunded liability, then some concluding remarks and some questions.

The Hon. D.W. Ridgway: Don't rush it.

The Hon. M. PARNELL: The Hon. Mr Ridgway says: don't rush it. I assure the honourable member that I will be as thorough as I can but conscious of the time that we are taking. One person wrote to me — and, again, I will not name them — in an email just last week as follows:

Dear Mr Parnell

Thank goodness there is still someone in parliament who is prepared to fight for the 'underdog'. I agree that WorkCover needs fixing but cannot believe the Labor Party is even considering making it harder for those on WorkCover. This appears to be a financial fix for business and government with no input from the injured workers and no investigation into the appalling WorkCover system.

This person goes on to explain the cuts, which we are all now well aware of. The email goes on:

I cannot return to work for my previous employer and many employers do not want to employ someone new who is on WorkCover. I was offered a job last year but due to WorkCover laws this did not eventuate because the organisation is self insured.

Employer covered by WorkCover is provided with two year protection, this is at no cost to the employer if the previously injured worker has a relapse. A self-insured employer does not get this protection even if they are prepared to give a person on WorkCover a fair go. I have not had any work since the end of October last year because my rehabilitation officer informed me that I had had enough money spent on me and therefore they would not be doing any more for me unless I phoned to say that I had an interview and felt it absolutely necessary to have someone with me. If someone was available from their office that person would meet me at the interview office. WorkCover have not confirmed this decision with me.

After contacting WorkCover, via my union, we are still waiting on a written reply from my then case manager. Have also contacted the WorkCover Complaints Department and other than one brief phone call in February have not heard any more. I was threatened by the above case manager that my payments would be ceased and accused of causing someone problems by sending an anonymous written complaint (do not know who this complaint was about or where the written complaint was sent).

Some lawyers do not want to take on new WorkCover clients due to the impending new laws that Mr Rann and his party want to implement. At least John Howard did offer workers $3,000 for legal fees with his WorkChoices laws, which I did not agree with either.

No-one asks to get injured at work and no-one deserves to become a multimillionaire as a result of an injury. However, injured workers do deserve fair pay and, if necessary, fair payouts—not $50,000 to $100,000 for the rest of their lives. These people will have to pay for medical treatment and medications out of this money probably for the rest of their lives and for the time that they are on WorkCover they do not get any superannuation payments, neither are they able to save on their reduced incomes.

My case has been going on for well over four years and I am now not sure if I can manage a return to work but certainly cannot afford to live on what I am being paid at present with the increase in the cost of living and certainly wouldn't manage on the above payout for the rest of my life. Instead, I would lose my home, I would need public housing, reduction in my gas, electricity, water rates, council rates etc. all of which would be coming out of the state government's finances. One debt being decreased whilst there will be many more requiring financial assistance from another government department.

WorkCover is all dealt with by EML, and it doesn't appear to have improved, but surely they could keep a closer watch on employers and reward those with a low claim record and, if necessary, introduce fines to those who continue to have high claim record. Perhaps some injuries could be lessened if the injury occurred was a result of bullying/harassment. The culprits could be forced to attend a course relevant to this type of behaviour and/or counselling at their own expense.

I do not agree with bullying/harassment in any situation but note that in the case of workers it is rarely dealt with effectively and adults are expected to 'get over it', whereas children can be paid huge amounts of compensation, which they will probably need to live a relatively normal life, and which they certainly deserve. I know this by talking to victims of this behaviour in the workplace. Workers cannot sue their employer. They cannot take any action against WorkCover if they fail in their obligations and leave people in limbo. I would appreciate it if you do not reveal my identity as I do not want my claim jeopardised.

I would normally go to my local member, who was helpful in the past, but, as he is the industrial minister, I do not think he would now be as helpful. I also spoke to Jay Weatherill about these issues at a 'corner meeting' prior to the last federal election, plus gave him a written copy of my concerns and suggestions, but I have never heard back from him.

I sincerely hope you can get your points of view across and, if not, have the bill defeated, at least manage some amendments and help protect the injured, who appear to have no real say.

There is a generosity that comes through in these letters, where people who have suffered under the system as it is are thinking as much about the people who follow and the people who will be impacted by the new system.

As members of parliament, we are very used to people writing about their own personal situation from a position of self-interest or selfishness, not that that is always a bad thing. However, what I have found reflected in these WorkCover letters is a genuine desire to try to help fix the system from whatever position they have — ordinary members in the community suggesting alternatives. If we had had a proper debate in the community on WorkCover, these ideas could have come out.

Also, as I have said before, if we were to send this bill to a standing committee or a select committee of this parliament, those types of stories could be put on the record and a report could come up with recommendations that would deal with those suggestions. Some of them might be worthwhile, others of them might be impossible to implement but, good grief, if we had a proper process, we could get all of these ideas on the table. Another letter states:

Dear Hon. Mark Parnell,

In regards to workers that have sustained psychological injuries in the workplace, where the employer has failed to provide a safe workplace, besides having contributed to the injury, where the worker was deemed unfit to return to original duties and been retrained to a different type of work but unlikely to earn the same level of income, thus receiving a top-up payment, how will the new legislation treat such individuals? I am specifically thinking of people like myself that have lost their homes as a result of the financial hardship endured beside other stresses that resulted from the original injury and now possibly stand to have to sell their existing home [once again].

As I will not be able to afford to pay my mortgage without the top-up, despite being back at work full time. WorkCover tells me that, according to their proposals, I stand to lose the top-up payment. How does one justify such treatment in the circumstances? Can you please explain to me and my family why psychological injuries that excludes lump sum payments, unlike other physical injuries, should be subjected to the added stress when such victims suffer enough without it? Why should families have to suffer in such circumstances?

Also, to what extent is the discrimination experienced (and lack of supported work environments) by such victims seeking suitable work recognised by the WorkCover Corporation and legislative authorities? Why implement new legislation and make it apply retrospectively? Is it legal? Can you help explain these issues to me?

I cannot answer all those questions. They are questions for the government to answer, and we will explore them in the committee stage.

Another one reads:

I am on WorkCover suffering from workplace stress due to being bullied and nagged by my employer and his wife. He has now left and he has defamed my character and left me unable to continue with my preferred employment as a nurse. All this happened in five years. Surely he should be held accountable for what he has done to me. No-one wants to be held accountable. I have been told by a CEO that he would not employ me because I am on WorkCover.

Again, it is a similar sort of story. I will leave the stories there and move on to the question of the unfunded liability, because the government tells us that this is at the heart of its reasons for introducing this legislation. In relation to the unfunded liability, I think we have to remember that even though that might be the rhetoric that is not really what it is about. As I have said before, we are talking about a cash transfer from sick and injured South Australians to business, and this is happening at a time when business is hardly doing it tough. On 8 April treasurer Foley told parliament:

The reality is that...any smart-minded, objective person is telling us that our economy is booming.

In fact, the Treasurer went on to say that 'KPMG has already said in its business costs benchmarking study that we are the lowest business cost jurisdiction in all of Australia.' Treasurer Foley talks about high business confidence levels and growing employment. All of these things are under our existing WorkCover system, with an average levy rate that has not moved since the 2003-04 financial year. So, when South Australia is already the cheapest place in Australia to do business, why is the Premier picking the pockets of sick and injured workers and their families and handing the compensation over to business? That is the fundamental question.

In many ways this bill is the Rann government's version of WorkChoices and, just like ex prime minister Howard did, our Premier is attacking vulnerable workers and their families. And just like the ex prime minister, it is all about short-changing working families in order to keep business happy — and this in an environment where South Australia is already the cheapest place in which to do business.

The best analysis I have seen of the unfunded liability and the truth behind what it is and the range of ways it could be reduced is the submission that many members have. I have avoided reading from these submissions in my contribution to date, but this is the best summary I have seen in relation to the unfunded liability. It is a discussion paper prepared for SA Unions by Dr Kevin Purse, Adjunct Research Fellow at the Hawke Research Institute at the University of South Australia, entitled 'Getting WorkCover Back on Track'. Under the heading 'WorkCover's Unfunded Liability' Dr Purse says:

WorkCover is again in the firing line over its finances. The current debate though, has become increasingly distorted as a result of a simplistic preoccupation with the scheme's 'unfunded liability'. Perversely, the criticisms have come at a time when WorkCover's bottom line is trending upwards. Of even greater significance, if WorkCover's continuing strong investment results were taken into account the scheme's financial position would be better off by $300 million.

So, if that is the margin for error — $300 million — then I think we need to look very carefully at every financial figure that is put to us in relation to WorkCover, but particularly in relation to the unfunded liability. Dr Purse goes on:

An unfunded liability is the gap between a scheme's estimated liabilities and its assets. As workers' compensation is a long-tail form of insurance, where claims liabilities may extend over several decades, it is very difficult to accurately predict these long-term liabilities.

For this reason, unfunded liability estimates should not be taken at face value. An unfunded liability is not a debt in the conventional sense but, rather, an estimate of the amount that WorkCover might or might not need to pay out over the next 40 to 50 years for existing claims, depending on how well the scheme is managed over this period. It is not an amount that needs to be paid out at any one point in time.

It is also important to note that WorkCover is more than capable of meeting its current obligations to injured workers and service providers as they fall due. The problem with the unfunded liability concept, as a measure of financial performance, is that it only looks at one side of the equation. WorkCover's estimated liabilities may have increased but so, too, have its assets from $1.12 billion in 2004-05 to $1.288 billion in 2005-06, an increase of $168 million. As the increase in is assets was greater than the increase in its estimated liabilities, WorkCover's financial position actually improved last financial year. This improvement has largely been ignored, though, because of the fixation with the headline 'Unfunded Liability Figure'.

A more useful tool to assess WorkCover's financial position is its funding ratio: the value of total assets as a percentage of total estimated liabilities since this provides a measure of the extent to which the scheme is fully funded. On this basis WorkCover was 65 per cent funded in 2005-06, compared with 63.4 per cent the previous year. Although not a large improvement, it was certainly a step in the right direction. This upward trend has continued and, as at February 2007, the scheme—with assets of $1.445 billion, estimated liabilities of $2.153 billion and an unfunded liability of $708 million—was 67.1 per cent funded.

The larger reality, of course, is that the workers compensation liability estimates are crucially dependent on the economic assumptions used. Even minor changes can result in dramatic variations in the bottom line. The two critical assumptions that underpin liability estimates are the claims inflation rate and the discount rate. The first is used to estimate the extent of WorkCover's outstanding liability for existing claims over the next 40 to 50 years; the second is used to discount that amount so that is expressed in today's dollar terms—its net present value.

The discount rate represents an assumed rate of return on WorkCover's investment portfolio. This variable is very sensitive. According to the fine print in WorkCover's annual report, a 1 per cent change in the discount rate can increase or reduce WorkCover's outstanding liability by $75 million.

That is $75 million for each 1 per cent variation or change in the discount rate. Dr Purse continues:

Since its inception in 1987, WorkCover's investment performance has been excellent, resulting in an annual 10.6 per cent rate of return. However, the rate of return currently used to discount the outstanding liability estimate is only 6 per cent. This is the so-called risk-free rate of return. If the discount rate was adjusted to 10 per cent it would more accurately reflect WorkCover's actual performance and reduce its liabilities by $300 million.

This approach, incidentally, would also maintain a healthy prudential margin. More generally, the discount rate should be based on a rolling average of WorkCover's investment returns which now covers almost 20 years. In operational terms, the discount rate would increase whenever WorkCover's investment performance improves and vice versa. As both increases and decreases in performance would be cushioned by the averaging process, this approach has the advantage of combining a greater realism while avoiding the volatile fluctuations in discount rates that could otherwise arise from short-term variations in investment returns. Its adoption would be a win-win outcome for South Australian employers and workers.

This performance-based approach contrasts with the current methodology where WorkCover's outstanding liabilities are estimated on an ultra-conservative basis. This ultra-conservatism results from the adoption of new accounting standards and, more particularly, the imposition of tougher prudential requirements on private insurance companies following the spectacular collapse of HIH in 2001. These new obligations are not binding on WorkCover but were designed to curb the excesses that have been a feature of private insurance markets over the last decade.

What that says to us is that the headlined figure of the unfunded liability is very much a function of the assumptions that are made and the discount and other rates that are applied. If those figures are themselves the subject of guesswork and speculation so, too, is the final product, the actual unfunded liability. What we need to consider in relation to the unfunded liabilities are what ways there are to reduce them without just cutting injured workers' entitlements. I note that the 2005 Statutory Authorities Review Committee report states:

Noting that the corporation does have cash flow through investment returns and assets to pay for day-to-day administrative expenses and claims costs, the committee has identified that multiple factors were involved in the deteriorating financial position of WorkCover —

Multiple factors, not just injured workers being paid too much money. That is one factor, but there were multiple factors, one of which was the reduction in the annual levy rate, that is, the amount collected from employers by way of a levy.

The rebate of $25 million to non-exempt employers and the non-increase of the annual levy rate when appropriate are pretty fundamental to this debate because the principle the government is working on is that the average levy rate has to go down from 3 per cent to the target range of between 2.25 and 2.75 per cent.

Other factors are: increasing outstanding claims liability, worsening investment returns globally, the collapse of world investments due to the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, the underperformance of investment income, the number of claimants continuing on the workers compensation system, increasing claims costs, increasing discontinuance rates, the termination of the contract of the scheme actuary, the application of the 65 per cent prudential margin, the appointment of the new actuary, outsourcing to claims agents, the agent contract renewal in 1998 and subsequent reduction in agent numbers, and the higher redemption payments.

In fact, that is a list of all the things that go to make up the financial position: some relate to money in and some relate to money out; some relate to investment returns and others relate to the payments made to injured workers. The formula is simple: money in, money out. However, there is a complex range of factors, and I urge members to look at the 2005 Statutory Authorities Review Committee report.

I will leave most of the remainder of my material to the appropriate point in the committee stage. Members will be pleased to know that I am drawing to the end of my remarks. By way of conclusion, I want to place on notice four questions for the minister to answer. Of course, there will be more questions at the committee stage, and we look at those in the context in which they arise, but these are four questions to start with.

First, will the minister table his actuarial advice? If that actuarial advice is at the heart of the government's assessment that the unfunded liability can be reduced only by cutting workers' entitlements, we need to see that advice. Secondly, will he release the WorkCover guidelines on non-economic loss? As legislators, we do not have the ability to know what people will get unless we see those guidelines. Thirdly, I want to know what will be the estimated cost to the commonwealth of the shift of workers from WorkCover onto taxpayer funded benefits — basically Centrelink? What economic analysis has been done? Do we have an estimate of what the cost will be?

The Hon. S.G. Wade interjecting:

The Hon. M. PARNELL: The honourable member says that it is a commonwealth cost but, if our state government is about to impose on the commonwealth an obligation to pay people out of commonwealth funds, I imagine they have done a detailed analysis. If I was the commonwealth, I would be cross with the state government for not having done that work. It is a valid question for the minister.

Fourthly, how does the government reconcile its changes to the workers compensation scheme through this bill to its own strategic plan target? Strategic plan target 6.5 is to 'reduce the percentage of South Australians receiving government benefits, excluding age pensions, as their major income source to below the Australian average by the year 2014'. The South Australian Strategic Plan is fewer people on Centrelink, yet it seems to me — and I will await eagerly the minister's response — that this is a recipe for putting more people onto Centrelink benefits.

I thank the council for its forbearance. Debates such as this are not easy. The corridors of this place buzz with all sorts of rumours. People were saying that the government would not give the crossbench the right to speak, and that has proved to be untrue. I have delivered the material that I wanted to deliver, and I will have more opportunities later in the committee stage. I thank all members for their forbearance.

We are sitting later than we would normally. We do not normally sit this late on a Thursday night. Again, I make no apology for the fact that, as a fairly new member of parliament, I think this is the most important piece of legislation we have seen. I thought the climate change legislation was important. I think that topic was incredibly important but, in relation to the legislation, not so much. In terms of actual legislation which does real work and real damage this is the biggest bill we have debated. I make no apology for taking a long time to deal with it.

I have got over being cross about the attacks levelled at us for taking too long with this bill and for taking too long with the organised crime bill, when over the past few weeks of sitting we have been sent home early. I have been ready to debate the crimes legislation — which has now passed this council — and I have worked heaven and earth to get ready for this bill, as well. I want to thank, in particular, my staff Cate and Craig for helping me to put this together.

I said before that I have dropped a lot of things that were on my agenda — on the Greens agenda — things which my party wanted me to pursue in the parliament. I have dropped them to respond to the government's agenda. I look forward to the committee stage but, before that, I look forward to the contribution of other members. No doubt we will hear from Labor on the second reading before this debate is closed. I am particularly interested to hear the remarks of the Hon. Ann Bressington, my crossbench colleague. I note that the first tranche of my amendments has been tabled, and I thank parliamentary counsel for getting those to us in this timely manner. There will be more to come, and I look forward to the committee stage of the debate.

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Mark's speech concluded at 22:55