Australia, insurance, car, home, live, holidays

Karen Batt,the secretary of the Victorian branch of the Community and Public Sector Union.Credit:Eddie Jim

On Tuesday,the state government declared WorkCover was “fundamentally broken” and said an overhaul was needed to stop billions in additional taxpayer funds being used to prop up the workers’ compensation scheme.

Payouts have exceeded premium revenue by more than $1 billion this financial year,a deficit that has been partly caused by the rising number of mental-health claims,according to the government.

If WorkCover remains unchanged,it’s expected that by next year,mental injury claims could represent 19 per cent of all cases and 50 per cent of the scheme’s costs.

Community and Public Sector Union Victorian branch secretary Karen Batt said the disintegration of WorkCover was of the government’s own making due to its record as an employer.

She said the state was demanding more from public servants amid a growing population,high job vacancies and an outdated funding model.

“The government has known of these problems since 2021,” she said.

“I fear they are just hoisting the flag now with the intention of narrowing the grounds to make it impossible to achieve a successful mental-health claim.”

Joseph Gagliano,a practising psychologist based in Brunswick,said the government needed to tackle the root cause of the spike in mental-injury claims. He has seen clients in the public sector working up to 80-hour weeks.

“I’ve got one client who was doing essentially three people’s work,” he said.

“She ended up being burnt out and suicidal because she believed she was letting down her colleagues and that she wasn’t any good at her job. She’s just able to come back to work after 20 months.”

He said there were too few safeguards when the system went awry. WorkCover will often refer people to the ombudsman if they have a complaint,he said,but the ombudsman’s website says it has no power to directly intervene.

The number of active WorkCover claims past the 130-week mark has almost doubled since June 2016,according to government figures. The scheme has not paid a dividend to the state since 2016.

WorkCover premiums have also not moved froman average of 1.27 per cent of payroll since the 2015 financial year. Victoria’s premiums are lower than all states and territories,except for Queensland.

The government has said all options for reform are on the table.

Speaking to the media on Tuesday,Premier Daniel Andrews said the focus should be on getting people back to work.

“What we have to do is make it so that more and more people after 130 weeks are well enough and have been supported comprehensively enough to get back to work,” he said.

“We also have to deal with the rapid rise in the number of mental-health patients,for whom their mental health is linked to their work,and to provide better services to people.”

The opposition’s WorkCover spokeswoman,upper house Liberal MP Ann-Marie Hermans,said years of mismanagement under Labor had driven the system into the ground.

“Victoria needs an affordable and effective WorkCover scheme. Yet under the Andrews Labor government,it has anything but.”

The Morning Edition newsletter is our guide to the day’s most important and interesting stories,analysis and insights.Sign up here.

License this article

Workplace safety