Victorian Political News		www.robertclark.net

WorkCover: What Trades Hall need to tell their members

News Release - 23 March 2000

Trades Hall union leaders should have used today's WorkCover rally to explain why they want to force injured workers to run the gauntlet of cost, uncertainty and delay through the legal system and the courts for compensation.

The Shadow Minister for WorkCover, Robert Clark, said the only people who are assured of benefiting from reintroduction of the so-called common law system are labor lawyers, who have collared the decision makers of Trades Hall against the interests of workers.

"Before so-called common law actions were abolished in Victoria in 1997, legal and medico-legal costs were draining $115 million a year out of the system, at the expense of injured workers and employers," Mr Clark said.

"In 1997 the Coalition reached the same conclusion as the Hawke Labor Government in 1988 and the South Australian Labor Government in 1992, namely that basing compensation entitlements on proof of fault is a costly, inefficient and inappropriate mechanism for compensating injured workers.

"Why should two workers with identical injuries receive different levels of compensation simply because one worker can prove negligence against the boss while the other worker can't?

"The current union campaign has failed to address arguments such as these, which have broad support across the political spectrum and from compensation professionals.

"Instead, the union movement is seeking to use sheer emotion and industrial muscle impose its own very costly version of so-called common law on the Government, just as unions are seeking to impose their will on the construction industry and the manufacturing industry.

"In doing so, they risk selling their members a pup - if so-called common law is reintroduced, many injured workers could bring proceedings and end up worse off than under the current guaranteed payment system.

"Everyone is agreed that injured workers are entitled to fair and reasonable compensation, and Trades Hall often puts forward cases of workers who have suffered grievous injuries at work.

"But what Trades Hall has failed to do is show how so-called common law is the best and fairest way of providing compensation for such injured workers.

"Instead of tagging along with the self-interest of labor lawyers, and the opportunistic political approach of the Victorian Labor Party, Trades Hall should be looking at any proposed changes in a way which would genuinely benefit injured workers."

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