PRODUCTIVITY COMMISSION INQUIRY

NATIONAL WORKERS’ COMPENSATION AND OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY FRAMEWORKS

INTERIM REPORT 2003

COMMENT
dctlparMuch of the research quoted by the Commission in favour of this principle has been carried out in the United States.  However one cannot automatically extrapolate research findings from the United States - where the social, cultural and economic milieu is different -  to the environment of workers’ compensation in Australia.  It is also relevant to ask whether one is measuring the outcome of step-downs and caps in terms of the monetary savings to the system or in terms of the emotional and physical health of the injured or ill employees.

I suggest that this is one area where the proposed new national body for workers’ compensation needs to research, analyse, and evaluate data, particularly within an Australian context. 

4) Dispute Resolution

The Productivity Commission’s recommendations regarding dispute resolution are excellent in theory.

However, there remains the problem that agents/insurance companies may not follow the dispute resolution guidelines of the government statutory body that oversees their scheme.  Other submissions to the Inquiry also mention that this can be a problem at times in regard to self-insurers.  

A formal system of feedback and evaluation by claimants would help to reduce this problem.  Once again this could be part of a general restructure of workers’  compensation into a non-adversarial framework.

In conclusion, whatever model or ‘framework’ of national workers’ compensation is selected and/or gradually implemented, I submit that it is critical from a claimant’s point of view that there be a ‘paradigm shift’ to a system which is non-adversarial.