Latest news with #psychologicalinjury
The Guardian
3 days ago
- Health
- The Guardian
Union says insurers ‘bleeding the system dry' in backlash to NSW bid to limit workers compensation claims
The Minns Labor government is facing strong pushback against workers compensation changes designed to curb claims for psychological injury, with educators and the peak union group criticising the bill's failure to address underlying issues. The government wants to limit the ability of New South Wales's 4.5 million workers to claim compensation by raising the psychological injury threshold required for compensation and making it harder to receive lifetime payments. The NSW treasurer, Daniel Mookhey, has warned that the workers compensation scheme will become unsustainable without changes, noting premiums will need to rise by as much as 38% over the next four years. The government faces a $2.6bn shortfall in the Treasury Managed Fund which covers the cost of claims by state public servants. Sign up: AU Breaking News email But the vast majority of submissions to state parliamentary hearings on the changes oppose them, with many arguing the government needs to address other aspects of the scheme and prevent bullying, unreasonable work demands and other causes of psychological injury, rather than curtailing the ability of workers to claim. Unions NSW will tell the committee on Tuesday that the focus of the reforms should be on stopping insurance companies using workers compensation scheme funds to run cases with no reasonable chance of success. In its submission, Unions NSW said legal fees and investigations cost the scheme $332m annually, with minimal benefit to workers or employers. It gave the example of one case where an insurer spent $85,000 of public money to fight a $5,000 knee surgery that a worker's doctor said she needed. The tribunal ultimately approved the surgery. 'This inquiry has exposed the shocking waste happening right under our noses – $332m a year being spent on legal fees and investigations that achieve virtually nothing for workers or the scheme's sustainability,' the secretary of Unions NSW, Mark Morey, said. 'While politicians argue about fictional fraud epidemics, insurers are bleeding the system dry with impunity.' The inquiry has received hundreds of submissions from people who have experienced psychological injury at work and from professional groups representing legal professions, doctors, psychologists, employers and insurers. NSW Secondary Principals' Council – which represents more than 500 principals in public schools – expressed its strong opposition to the bill. Teachers have made an increased number of claims for psychological injury. 'While we acknowledge the government's intent to address systemic issues, we are deeply concerned that the proposed amendments fail to address the underlying causes of workplace injury – particularly those experienced by principals,' the council said. 'According to the Australian Catholic University's Riley Review (2023), over 50% of school leaders report serious threats of violence, with one in three experiencing physical assault,' the submission said. 'These risks are reinforced by the NSWSPC's own longitudinal data. The 2024 principal wellbeing survey found that nearly 1 in 4 principals (23%) reported experiencing a work-related psychological or physical health issue – including depression, PTSD, and anxiety,' it said. The Law Society said its position remains that the government should not proceed with the bill, which was 'introduced without adequate transparency and meaningful consultation'. Law firm Slater and Gordon said while it recognised the government's objective of restoring financial sustainability to the scheme, it should not be achieved through 'blunt eligibility restrictions, untested procedural models, and thresholds that will have the effect of excluding all but the most extreme cases'. Clubs NSW supported the change, saying in itssubmission that psychological injury were too readily accepted and paid. 'Clubs are regularly liable for injuries caused by reasonable management action like delivering performance feedback,' it said in its submission.
ABC News
11-06-2025
- Health
- ABC News
NSW Police pushed to find 'root cause' of psychological injury claims, officers allege bullying, harassment
NSW Police has spent more than $1.7 billion on staff psychological injury claims in the five years to 2024, including many who claimed they suffered bullying and harassment at work. An auditor-general report examining the mental health and wellbeing of NSW Police officers found the force has not made enough effort to understand the "root causes" of the psychological injuries. It said NSW Police Force (NSWPF) was therefore not "efficiently or effectively preventing future psychological injuries". In the five years between mid-2019 and mid-2024, psychological injury claims made up 74 per cent of compensation costs, totalling $1.75 billion compared to just 26 per cent for physical injuries. The report found "work-related harassment and/or workplace bullying" was among the fourth most prevalent category used by NSW Police officers claiming psychological injuries, behind "other mental health stress factors", "exposure to workplace violence" and "work pressure". Acting Police Commissioner Peter Thurtell in response said ensuring officers had the support they needed was a "priority" for the force and it had "implemented several initiatives aimed at improving psychological wellbeing". "I do not share your view that the NSWPF is not efficiently or effectively preventing future psychological injuries. "Where risks cannot be eliminated, the NSWPF strives to minimise risks to health and safety." Bullying and harassment in the workplace was more commonly used in psychological injury claims by officers than "exposure to a traumatic event" or "being assaulted" on the job. The report did not further examine workplace bullying or other impacts on workplace morale. It comes after an ABC News investigation late last year into the exposed widespread allegations of a toxic culture at the NSWPF, including bullying, harassment, discrimination and a dangerous lack of mental health support. The investigation included claims the toxic culture was driving officers out of the job in large numbers, leading to unprecedented shortages across the state. It prompted the outgoing NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb to announce an independent review of the culture on the force, led by former Victorian Human Rights commissioner Kristen Hilton. That review is still underway and a report is expected to be released by the end of the year. The auditor-general report said the NSWPF had been "operating with significant workforce shortages since 2023" and most officers interviewed claimed that was having a significant impact on their mental health. "In all of the local commands where police were interviewed for this audit, frontline police advised that the primary cause of their workplace stress was high workloads, exacerbated by staffing shortages," the report said. "At some busy metropolitan stations, junior police advised that they are expected to arrive an hour before their official rostered start time, and may be expected to stay back for up to an hour after their rostered end time without additional payment." The report made four recommendations for NSW Police to implement by July next year, including implementing a "workforce allocation model that matches police numbers to command-level workload demands and changing workload levels". It also called for the force to "investigate and report on the factors that contribute to police role overload and burnout, and adjust policy settings, practices and controls accordingly". The report found NSW Police had failed to adequately investigate whether any workplace hazards or stressors had potentially contributed to the 171 critical incidents between mid-2019 and mid-2024. Critical incidents are those that result in deaths or major injuries to police or the public while police are involved.
News.com.au
11-06-2025
- Health
- News.com.au
New report reveals $1.75bn paid in compensation to NSW Police officers suffering psychological injuries
The NSW Auditor-General has revealed NSW Police officers suffering psychological injuries received $1.75bn in compensation payments between 2019 and 2024. A new report titled The Mental Health and Wellbeing of NSW Police released by the Auditor-General's office examined whether the force had effectively managed the psychological wellbeing of its workforce. It found the number of psychological injury claims, compensation payments and medical exits from the police force escalated in five years from 2019. There were more than 1200 psychological injury claims from NSW Police officers in 2023-24, and of those who left the force, more than half cited medical reasons. Psychological injuries were the most common, accounting for 769 officers leaving in 2023-24. Mental stress, exposure to workplace violence and work pressure were the main reasons for quitting. In February last year, 1261 officers were on long-term sick leave with active workers compensation claims for a psychological injury, which 536 employees attributed to post-traumatic stress disorder. The NSW Police Force is Australia's largest law enforcement agency, with more than 16,200 sworn officers and 4294 civilian officers serving 8.5 million people. Like other NSW public sector departments, the number of police psychological injury claims had been increasing until a significant investment in October last year of tens of millions of dollars to better support police. But the Auditor-General found that while the NSW Police Force monitored psychological injuries, it had not analysed the root cause to effectively prevent future harm in its workforce. The Auditor-General found that improved risk reporting had not been implemented and initiatives to improve wellbeing within the workforce had been done without proper analysis of the cause of psychological injuries. 'The new initiatives provide counselling and support for police after traumatic incidents but do not address other psychological risk factors such as role overload, fatigue or burnout,' the report stated. 'There has been limited evaluation of initiative outcomes to date, and their effectiveness has not been determined. 'In the absence of data about the causes of psychological injury, or evaluations of wellbeing services, the NSW Police Force was unable to demonstrate the efficiency or effectiveness of its wellbeing investment.' Recommendations were made for police to allocate officers that matched workloads in command areas and to implement systems to better understand factors that led to psychological injury claims. A NSW Police spokesman told NewsWire that policing was a challenging and rewarding job that exposed officers to traumatic incidents. 'The psychological wellbeing of our people is vitally important, and we will continue to improve the support programs at all levels that enable our officers to do the job that they love,' the spokesman said. 'We welcome the report and the work of the Audit Office of NSW, and it is important that we acknowledge the challenges and opportunities recognised in the report. 'We are well on the way to doing better and have made significant improvements over the past three years to improve our awareness, training, education and support of all our people.'
ABC News
05-06-2025
- Business
- ABC News
NSW workers' compensation reforms delayed as bill referred for second inquiry
The NSW Coalition has sided with unions to delay the Labor government's workers' compensation reforms over a measure that would have made it harder to claim long-term compensation for psychological injuries. The Opposition and the Greens teamed up in the state's upper house on Thursday to refer the Minns government's bill to a second parliamentary inquiry. The Public Accountability and Works Committee will now be required to table a report on the bill at a later date. During the debate in the upper house, Treasurer Daniel Mookhey argued that the "unnecessary" delay would cost the private sector at least $5 million a day. One measure of the bill, which proved to be the sticking point for the Coalition, was the proposal to double the Whole Person Impairment (WPI) threshold from 15 to 31 per cent. This would have made it significantly harder for workers to claim ongoing support for a psychological injury beyond two-and-a-half years. The unions opposed the proposition and found themselves an unlikely ally in the NSW Liberal Party leader Mark Speakman, who resisted calls from major business lobby groups to urgently pass the bill. Mr Speakman said the Coalition would have supported the bill if several proposed amendments were adopted, including maintaining the threshold at 15 per cent. "We think that is a drastic measure that will punish the most severely affected workers, so we don't want to see that threshold raised," he told ABC Radio Sydney. "We want to see premiums driven down, they are becoming unaffordable for small business, but we think there are fairer ways of doing it." According to the State Insurance Regulatory Authority, psychological injury claims increased by 64 per cent over four years, from 5,616 in 2019-20 to 9,195 in 2023-24. Mr Mookhey claimed that without the reforms, premiums paid by businesses would increase by 36 per cent over three years to 2028, costing businesses more than $1 billion a year. "The opportunity we will miss is to fundamentally begin repairing a system everyone acknowledges is broken," Mr Mookhey said during the debate in the upper house. "For the 340,000 businesses that pay into this scheme, the opportunity we will miss … is to give them certainty about what's going to happen to their most significant costs and significant causes of anxiety." During the debate, Shadow Treasurer Damien Tudehope acknowledged that "the treasurer and I seemed to have swapped friends". Earlier on Thursday, Premier Chris Minns said during Question Time that the Coalition was being "misled" about the possible impact of the measure. "The truth is the Coalition's amendments would gut the bill," Mr Minns said. The bill had cleared the lower house with some minor amendments on Monday night. Last month, the government softened parts of the bill after fierce backlash from unions and concerns raised by medical professionals and lawyers during an inquiry.
The Guardian
05-06-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Setback for Minns government as controversial workers' compensation bill sent to inquiry
A controversial bill to curtail workers' compensation claims for psychological injuries incurred by New South Wales workers will be sent to a parliamentary inquiry, after cross benchers and the Coalition banded together to force the inquiry. The independent Mark Latham moved for a relatively swift inquiry, with the date of reporting to be set by the chair of the inquiry, once the scope of evidence is known. The move is a setback for the Minns Labor government, which released the workers' compensation bill a week ago, insisting it was extremely urgent and needed to be passed this week. The state treasurer, Daniel Mookhey, who opposed the inquiry, said NSW's compensation scheme was running a $5m deficit every day. The full impact of growth in claims for psychological injury by public sector workers will be evident on 24 June when the state budget is delivered. Mookhey said this week there had been a $2bn deterioration in the Treasury managed fund which pays for public servants' claims. He's also warned that premiums for business will need to rise by 36% in the next three years. 'No employers should have to worry about the sustainability of the scheme,' he said. 'If we delay further the task gets harder.' The government's bill would lift the threshold for whole of person impairment from 20% to 30%, limiting their compensation to payments to 2.5 years. It has been heavily criticised by the union movement and medical and legal experts who say that the threshold is too high, and will leave workers who are unable to function without the financial support they need. The opposition wants the threshold left as it is, but offered amendments to definitions of bullying and other aspects of the bill, which it said would deliver more modest savings. Greens MLC Abigail Boyd, who is chair of the public accounts committee, said the government had committed 'a complete breach of trust' by blurring the impact on various government accounts and failing to produce the modelling that would allow members to assess the impact of the scheme. 'I don't like being misled,' Boyd said. 'The treasurer has deliberately confused the nominal fund and the Treasury managed fund,' she said. She accused Mookhey of being driven by concerns over the state's AAA rating at the expense of injured workers. 'It is not melodramatic to talk about life and death.' Five people committed suicide after the 2012 changes that were later reversed, she said. 'These are the most cruel and dangerous of reforms. If you think as I do that this will cost lives, then I urge you to support an inquiry,' she said. The inquiry is expected to begin as soon as possible, with Mookhey indicating he wants to pass the bill in the budget sittings of parliament. The committee will meet next week, will be chaired by Boyd and include Latham, and Coalition MLCs Damien Tudehope, Sarah Mitchell. The government will nominate three members. The Treasurer has publicly indicated his willingness to cooperate.
