The Bligh government’s workers’ compensation reforms won’t limit worker access to common law but will include a 13% rise in the average employer premium—and an ‘institutional’ review of WorkCover QLD.

In a move that has drawn criticism from the Ai Group, the reforms to Queensland’s workers compensation system announced on April 27 2010 in a joint statement by Premier Bligh and Attorney-General and Minister for Industrial Relations, Dick Cameron, include raising the average premium rate from $1.15 per $100 wages, to $1.30 per $100 wages in the 2010-11 premium year.

This is in line with a recommendation from the Queensland WorkCover board, who asked for progressive increases over time to the average premium rate paid by Queensland businesses, which even after the flagged rise will remain the lowest in Australia.

However, raising premiums was just one in a package of WorkCover recommendations, the majority of which Bligh’s Labor government has rejected.

Instead of its requested “package” of reforms, WorkCover is getting something it didn’t ask for: a structural review of institutional and working arrangements within Queensland’s workers’ comp scheme, which will consider “claims management, common law settlements, rehabilitation and return to work as well as the range of issues raised during the review”.

What this “range of issues” might include is anyone’s guess, but as we noted last week some of the submissions to the recent WorkCover review made very interesting reading and appeared to corroborate anonymous allegations of claim mishandling within the authority’s common law department.

Recommendations from the WorkCover package snubbed by Bligh and Cameron include the introduction of a common law threshold of 10% or 15% whole person impairment (WPI), an increase to statutory lump sum payments and changes to step downs in weekly benefit payments.

According to Chris Rodwell, Queensland Director of the Ai Group, Queensland industry has been badly let down by the Bligh government’s decision to raise premiums and reject a WPI threshold for access to common law.

“Instead of making the necessary changes required to get the scheme back into shape, the state government has slugged employers,” Mr Rodwell said, despite applauding some aspects of the reforms.

The Queensland Council of Unions welcomed the government’s refusal to “bow to employer pressure” on the issue of a WPI threshold, while criticising measures to cap damages payable by harmonising workers’ comp legislation with the Civil Liability Act 2003.

Interestingly, there was no union comment on flagged amendments clearly aimed at discouraging speculative and opportunistic claiming, including increasing the onus of proof to prove employer fault in relation to common law claims, and allowing courts to award costs against workers whose common law claims are not successful—suggesting that perhaps unions are quietly supportive of these sensible reforms.

Neither unions nor industry are entirely happy with the package of reforms the government has opted for—but with its own reform package largely snubbed by government and an  “institutional” review on the horizon, it is the response within WorkCover Queensland we're most curious about.