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Workers’ Compensation (Dust Diseases) Amendment Bill 2022

Published on: August 2022

Record: HANSARD-1323879322-126643

Workers’ Compensation (Dust Diseases) Amendment Bill 2022

First Reading

Bill introduced on motion by Ms Felicity Wilson, on behalf of Mr Matt Kean, read a first time and printed.

Second Reading Speech

Ms FELICITY WILSON (North Shore) (10:21:12):

On behalf of Mr Matt Kean: I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

The bill amends the Workers' Compensation (Dust Diseases) Act 1942 and the Workers Compensation Act 1987, which I will refer to as the 1987 Act. The Dust Diseases Care scheme provides financial compensation and healthcare support to people affected by work-related dust diseases, and the bill is part of the response to mis‑payments that were identified by icare in 2020. A remediation program is underway to repay those workers who were underpaid, but during that remediation program it was identified that some workers had been overpaid through a continuation of payment practices that appeared reasonable but became inconsistent with legislative changes over the years. The bill, therefore, seeks to amend legislation to make it consistent and to enable the continuation of those current payment practices. The bill further amends legislation to simplify benefit calculations and, therefore, ease the administrative burden on our injured workers.

I now turn to the detail of the bill. The bill removes references to coalminers in the 1942 Act to clarify that coalmining provisions do not apply to workers with a dust disease. The bill amends rates of compensation to injured workers to align with the 1987 Act, rather than with the lower rates under the Workers' Compensation Act 1926, and it ensures that workers get paid a statutory rate that is 20 per cent higher than currently entitled. The bill amends provisions so that, regardless of the date of the injury occurring, calculation of benefits for injured workers are consistent and in line with the rates within the general workers compensation scheme. The bill amends provisions to ensure partially disabled workers who are retired or unfit for suitable duties as a result of their dust disease are entitled under legislation to payments for dependants. The bill amends the 1987 Act so that current weekly wage rates can be calculated according to Australian Bureau of Statistics average earnings.

The bill will contribute to improving the customer experience for workers in the scheme by removing ambiguity over their entitlements and by ensuring that payments are made promptly to workers who are elderly or gravely ill. The bill will directly assist many of those workers by removing the difficult burden of verifying earnings by providing documentation from many years ago. Without this bill, payment practice would need to change, and injured workers would lose their entitlements that have been in practice and have been paid to date. The cost impact of the recommended amendments will be funded by a marginal increase in the rate of drawdown from the scheme's investment fund. There will be no need to increase the levy and thus no cost impact on employers from the recommendation. The recommended amendments do not put the sustainability of the scheme at risk.

The bill before the House today represents another important step in our reform agenda and will ensure that the Dust Disease Authority is delivering the scheme in line with legislated provisions and in a way that is fair and reasonable to all claimants. I acknowledge the Minister in the other place, Damien Tudehope, for his work and his team's work on this legislation. I thank all those who have been involved in drafting the bill. I commend the bill to the House.

Debate adjourned.