New South Wales Premier Chris Minns has declared “it’s over”, after a core component of the government’s controversial workers’ compensation reforms was defeated.<\/p>\n
Labor had been trying to pass the legislation for six months, but even after a 16-hour debate that began in the upper house on Thursday, it was unable to break the impasse.<\/p>\n
“We’ve got to live with the consequences now because it’s been defeated,” Mr Minns said on Friday.<\/p>\n
Designed to lower the cost of the scheme and keep a lid on workers’ compensation insurance premiums, a central part of the proposed reforms was raising the “whole person impairment” threshold.<\/p>\n
The government originally wanted to lift the bar used to determine lifetime payments for psychological injuries from 15 per cent to 31 per cent.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Treasurer Daniel Mookhey announced on Thursday that the government would back a compromise put forward by crossbenchers. (ABC News)<\/p>\n
But on Thursday, Treasurer Daniel Mookhey said the government would back a compromise of 28 per cent proposed by crossbenchers, including Sydney MP Alex Greenwich and upper house Liberal-turned-independent Taylor Martin.<\/p>\n
Hours later, on the floor of parliament, Mr Martin announced he had changed his mind and would no longer move the crossbench amendments.<\/p>\n
“This will come as news to many, I will support the amendments that the leader of the opposition has just moved,” Mr Martin said.<\/p>\n
He took aim at Labor MPs who had pledged to support injured workers ahead of the last election.<\/p>\n
“If the Labor government really needs to take away workers’ compensation to plug the holes in its budget, it should take that to an election and seek that mandate from the public,” Mr Martin said.<\/p>\n
“I will not be the patsy for this government.”<\/p>\n
Mr Martin had initially supported some of the amendments but later changed his mind. (Facebook: Taylor Martin MLC)<\/p>\n
Asked by the ABC whether the government was prepared to give any more ground, the premier said, “It’s over.”<\/p>\n
“[The parliament] has made a decision. We can expect premiums to go up,” Mr Minns said.<\/p>\n
“Part of the bill’s passed \u2026 that’s good news. But at this point, with the parliamentary year over and premiums having to go out the door soon, I can’t offer any more false hope.”<\/p>\n
During a sitting that lasted until about 6am on Friday, the upper house passed a stripped-back version of the bill, with the Coalition successfully removing changes to impairment thresholds.<\/p>\n
No need to raise premiums, Coalition says<\/p>\n
Shadow Treasurer Damien Tudehope said it was a victory for seriously injured workers.<\/p>\n
“How is it that the government ever thought that it was appropriate to attack seriously injured workers to make savings?<\/p>\n
“How is it that you attack people who have suicidal ideation and self-harm ideation and think that that’s a good idea for the purposes of making savings to a workers’ compensation scheme?”<\/p>\n
Responding to a question on whether the Coalition would take responsibility for the insurance premiums of small businesses going up, Mr Tudehope said the hiking of premiums was a decision for the treasurer.<\/p>\n
“It is the stroke of a pen by the treasurer,” he said.<\/p>\n
“There is ample evidence to show that there is no need, no need to raise premiums and to attack the not-for-profit sector and small businesses.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mr Tudehope declared it a win for seriously injured workers. (ABC News)<\/p>\n
Mr Tudehope said the parts of the legislation that did pass the upper house would still achieve substantial cost savings.<\/p>\n
Warning some businesses may be forced to shut<\/p>\n
With the legislation headed back to the lower house, the government must decide whether it will allow the amended bill to become law.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the premier said the government was still working out whether it would reintroduce changes to impairment thresholds before the end of the parliamentary year.<\/p>\n
Business NSW CEO Daniel Hunter said businesses were sweating on reforms passing the parliament before the summer break and urged parliamentarians to reach an agreement.<\/p>\n
“Businesses cannot go into Christmas with the threat of a 36 per cent increase in workers’ compensation premiums hanging over their heads,” Mr Hunter said.<\/p>\n
“One in five said they would be forced to shut.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mr Hunter urged parliamentarians to reach an agreement. (ABC News: Timothy Ailwood)<\/p>\n
NSW Nurses and Midwives’ Association assistant general secretary Michael Whaites said the union was “excited” by the bill’s form following the overnight debate.<\/p>\n
“Doing a reform whilst injuring workers, further injuring workers, is not the way to go. So we’re glad the bill hit the impasse that it did last night,” Mr Whaites said.<\/p>\n
“It’s now time for the Labor government to take a breath and do this work properly.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New South Wales Premier Chris Minns has declared “it’s over”, after a core component of the government’s controversial…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283933,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[26295,1783,71300,43,25213,44,2733,84,670,41,39,42,40,5728,1782],"class_list":["post-283932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-chris-minns","tag-compensation","tag-debate","tag-headlines","tag-legislation","tag-news","tag-nsw","tag-politics","tag-sydney","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-upper-house","tag-workers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}