It's curious what gets on your wick as you get older.  For me it's fairness, well ... unfairness and its consequences.

Nothing knots my string quicker than being on the wrong end of it.  Nothing outrages me more than seeing other people subject to it.  The consequences of unfair behaviour are far reaching and always unacceptable.

The degree of unfairness that claimants experience at the hands of 'the system' and the mildly pleasurable sense of self-righteousness I get at raging against it from time to time is what keeps my interest here.  But what is it that causes a system - that by law exists to assist people in their time of need - to behave in ways that leaves some claimants feeling like a statistic, distrusted, on the outer?

I know people who assess individuals who have had work injuries, work they have done in most states for many years and seen thousands and thousands of claimants.

The overwhelming majority of claimants that are assessed are on the level. They have a problem, it arose out of work, their claim is justified.  In the best of all worlds and systems they wouldn't need to be assessed; their claim would simply be accepted and they would be supported back to health and activity.  

But this is not the best of all worlds, because about 1% (maybe less) of the people assessed are on the fiddle, no doubt bored with a lifetime of doing it to themselves, they are trying to diddle the system.

Recently I heard about a jovial guy in his 50s.  He was assessed for, let's say a shoulder problem, that he claimed arose while driving a fork lift, but he was out of luck.  Unfortunately he had been seen by the same people before, a few years ago, when after picking up somewhere around half a mil for a total and permanent disability claim for a back problem, he was claiming a couple of hundred thousand more from his super fund insurance.  He'd not only gone back to work after those two adventures, but was now having a go at a claim for a new injury, which if he was to be believed was affecting every part of his body, causing his chooks to go off laying and a kid up the road to have migraines.  

The man was a fraud and has defrauded the system.  What consequence will he suffer?  Probably a terse letter rejecting his claim. Tut, tut.

The behaviour of the few people who diddle the system either gets them a bit of unearned income or a telling off.  The number of people convicted of defrauding workers' compensation systems in Australia is tiny, minute.  It's a crime, but the consequence for the perpetrator is a shrug of the shoulders.

The consequence for all other claimants, for people in the authorities, agents, treaters and employers are enormous and ongoing.  The fundamental uncertainty that this small percentage of con artists cause the entire system to suffer is, in my humble opinion, what makes the authorities behave as 'authorities' (lol, excluding their professional vanity of course).  It is one of the major things that causes statistics to be a preferred measure of claims ahead of relationships, claimants to feel like a number, leaves employers and unions frustrated, and claims managers looking for another job.

A few bad apples spoil it for everyone else.

It is enough, as my dear, departed mother would say, to make you want to throttle someone.

And that's my point.  For the system to work properly, to be fair in every direction to all concerned, the con artists have to face real penalties.  The message via the law and through cultural change for top to bottom in the industry should politely, firmly, but ever so clearly tell people who are not on the level to piss off.

The damage done is enormous. The consequences to the mental and physical health outcomes for people who are on the level are real and very bad.

I reckon it's time that the 'authorities' stopped blustering and began behaving with true authority to change the culture.