Victorian Political News		www.robertclark.net

WORKCOVER: MINISTER SHOULD RELEASE ACTUARIAL ASSESSMENT

News Release - Tuesday 14 November 2000

The Auditor-General's report on the State's finances, tabled in Parliament today, has reinforced the need for WorkCover Minister, Bob Cameron, to immediately make public the latest actuarial assessment of WorkCover's finances, the Shadow Minister for WorkCover, Robert Clark, said today.

Mr Clark said the latest actuarial assessment should reveal the true state of the VWA's current finances and test Minister Cameron's recent claims about the affordability of the Bracks government's so called 'common law' system.

The Auditor-General's report on Victoria's Annual Financial Statement has drawn attention to the uncertainty of the valuation of the Victorian WorkCover Authority's outstanding claims liability and emphasised the significance of this uncertainty not only for the VWA's financial position but for the financial position of the State public sector as a whole. [See references to WorkCover in the Overview, Executive Summary and paras 2.6-2.13, 5.1, 5.4, 7.4, and 7.61-7.75 of Report of the Auditor-General on the Finances of the State of Victoria 1999-2000.]

Mr Clark said that since the Annual Finance Statement was prepared, the Minister for WorkCover had received a revised actuarial assessment of the valuation of WorkCover's liabilities which should shed light on the uncertainty highlighted in the Auditor-General's report. However, the Minister had failed to publicly release that assessment.

This revised assessment takes into account potential common law claims for injuries prior to 12 November 1997 which were lodged in the weeks prior to deadline of 1 September 2000 set by the Labor Government for initiating such claims.

"We know that the Minister has received a revised actuarial assessment, because he has selectively released to the media a retrospective re-estimation of WorkCover's unfunded liabilities as at June 1999, which put the unfunded liability as at that date at $579 million.

"However, the Minister has not made public any revised actuarial assessment of either the current level of WorkCover's unfunded liabilities, or the ongoing cost of WorkCover under the new 'common law' system introduced by the Government in autumn this year.

"This is critical information which the public is entitled to know. This assessment will affect not just WorkCover, but the finances of the entire State public sector.

"Furthermore, this will be the first independent indication of whether the cost of the so-called 'common law' system reintroduced by the Government can be met within the current premium levels. It will show whether employers and the community have further cause to fear future premium increases on top of the massive and still unexplained increases which the Government has already imposed.

"The Minister should live up to his Government's claim to be open and accountable, and immediately release the full actuarial reassessment of WorkCover's financial position."