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Published: Monday, 17 November 2025 13:06
Prior to the NSW election in March 2023, 19 ALP Parliamentary hopefuls signed a pledge that they would support initiatives to protect workers compensation for workers with psychosocial injuries. Those 19 all became Ministers. On 27 May 2015, Labor introduced a bill for amendments to the Workers Compensation Act that would do precisely the opposite of what they had pledged. The 19 included Minns who became Premier and Daniel Mookhey who became the Treasurer. Shameful, duplicitous, who will ever trust them again?
While the bill was introduced into the Legislative Assembly by Sophie Cotsis MP, the Minister for Industrial Relations, it was introduced into the Legislative Council by Daniel Mookhey, a former official of Unions NSW, and the real architect of the initiatives to remove protection from injured workers.
Unions NSW, a representative body of all New South Wales unions launched a campaign in opposition. Ruing Mookhey's treachery, the campaign lobbied vigorously to oppose the legislative assault, attracting support from the Coalition, the Greens, and other crossbenchers.
The bill was moved into an Upper House Committee for review, and there it remained. The Government introduced a further bill that was also referred to the Committee, which called injured workers as witnesses, all of whom attested to the damage that would be done to workers by risks of increasing the 15% Whole Person Injury (WPI) to 30%. Workers who are 30% affected need permanent care at home, or life in an institution.
There was the usual complaining from business, where, for a change, Labor was the party of business, and the Coalition supported protections for workers. What a relief this is the last week of the Parliamentary term this year.
Unions NSW’s campaign to attract and retain the support of Upper House independents couldn’t restrain those independents from trying to settle in other ways – there were alliances being formed and changing everywhere. But in the end, one brave politician, MP Taylor Martin MLC, someone who up until that moment was not a household name, and who, almost up until the bitter end, had been pressing amendments trying to break the deadlock, told Parliament on Thursday night, “I will not be the patsy for this government”.
In his speech he said that he had “not heard a single convincing argument today or another time” that justified slashing medical payments for psychologically injured workers. He said, “if taking away workers’ protections and compensation matters so much to the Minns Government’s budget, then one of its members in the lower house who signed the bloody pledge can move to rip off those workers and set the bar so high that they will no longer have any cover… I do not know how members supporting that can sleep at night.
If the Labor government really needs to take away workers compensation to plug the holes in its budget, it should take that to an election and seek that mandate from the public. According to its pledge, the only mandate that the Minns government has on this issue is to support workers unable to return to work”.
We have a new workers’ hero!
By Lachlan Hyde - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0
Shadow Treasurer Damien Tudehope MP described it as “a victory for seriously injured workers”, and it was the amendment moved by the Shadow Treasurer which was eventually successful.
When the amendment to WPI was put there was a call for a division, but Labor MPs refused because their names would have to be recorded! It’s hard to rewrite history when it’s recorded in Hansard! The Shadow Treasurer said “they knew that their vote betrayed the very front line workers they claim to stand up for. They also knew would betray the unions who fund their campaigns.”
Premier Chris Minns told the Sydney Morning Herald that “it’s over … the parliament has made a decision. We can expect premiums to go up“. There hasn’t been a peep from the Treasurer. That doesn’t mean he has accepted defeat, but after five months, the sides are solid in their views, everyone’s had enough. The sooner he declares the bill will proceed without change to the WPI percentages, the better.
Unions NSW Secretary Mark Morey called on the government “to put away the sledgehammer and rediscover compassion and dignity for traumatised and vulnerable workers.”
A brilliant and successful campaign from Mark and the team at Unions NSW makes us proud to be an affiliate.
It’s a truism that it’s never over until it’s over. While it's looking likely that it will be waived through and the government will live with the pain and embarrassment, never underestimate the attraction of the pork barrel. There must be plenty of marginal electorates that need another sports complex…
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Published: Monday, 17 November 2025 13:06
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The debate about the housing shortage has been driven by developers demanding a deregulated approach, looking to get shoddy flats up as quickly as possible while worrying about the quality later. What else could be the result of latest steps of the NSW Government?
Last month depaNews revealed some bad news about industrial disputes at Waverley, Richmond Valley, and Tamworth but some good news that the Committee of Management had been working on a position paper for depa about where we stood on the housing shortage and planning in NSW. The Committee’s document is suitably professional and put together by highly experienced and qualified depa members. I wrote the next four paragraphs and I’m none of those things.
Governments only make bad decisions about planning. Politics and vested interests get in the way of decisions that should be focused on quality planning, building liveable and high amenity housing for towns and cities. Fundamental principles like infrastructure before building housing, construction from the perspective of owners and renters with an interest in quality-of-life, green spaces, amenity and liveability, come second.
The NSW Government doesn’t understand planning – the Planning Act in 1998 removed building regulation from councils and forever lost the concept of a BA handled locally, assisting applicants across the counter and providing local solutions.
At the same time, they introduced private certification – ignoring or somehow unaware of the conflict of interest inherent in developers and builders paying for their own certifiers, then failing to regulate the system when introduced, layers of subsequent regulation have haphazardly tried to remove the shonkies, the get-rich-quick, and the corrupt.
Finally, in 2010, and opposed by everyone in local government, they introduced the accreditation of council staff, who were already better regulated and managed as employees, and had no pecuniary interests as regulators, and were able to demonstrate the highly uncorrupted nature of the process. Unlike private certification.
Governments never learn.
Here is the Committee’s depa Position on the Housing Crisis and Local Government Planning in NSW.
