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Committee's report

The committee tabled its report on Tuesday 8 October 2019. The report can be found here.

About the Bill

On 22 August 2019 the Minister for Education and Minister for Industrial Relations, the Hon Grace Grace MP introduced the Workers’ Compensation and Rehabilitation and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2019 into the Queensland Parliament.  The Bill was referred to the Education, Employment and Small Business Committee for detailed consideration. The committee tabled its report on 8 October 2019. The Bill was passed on 22 October 2019. 

View: Introductory Speech

View: Bill

View: Explanatory Notes

View: Report

The Bill proposes to amend the following Acts:

• Workers’ Compensation and Rehabilitation Act 2003
• Further Education and Training Act 2014
• TAFE Queensland Act 2013.

In addition the Bill proposes to amend the Workers’ Compensation and Rehabilitation Regulation 2014 and repeal the Commonwealth Games Arrangements Act 2011.

 Amendments to Workers’ Compensation and Rehabilitation Act 2003

The explanatory notes state the objective of the Bill is to implement 12 legislative recommendations made by Professor David Peetz in: The Operation of the Queensland Workers’ Compensation Scheme: Report of the second five-yearly review of the scheme, completed in May 2018. Those amendments include:

• clarifying WorkCover Queensland’s ability to fund and provide programs and incentives that support employers improving health and safety performance, after consulting with the regulator under the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 or any other relevant health and safety regulator
• exempting expressions of regret and apologies provided by employers following a workplace injury from being considered in any assessment of liability for damages brought under the Workers’ Compensation and Rehabilitation Act 2003 to align with the approach taken in the Civil Liability Act 2003
• providing an additional way that employers can ensure that rehabilitation and return to work coordinators are appropriately qualified, and requiring employers to provide details of their rehabilitation and return to work coordinators to insurers, to support compliance and the provision of advisory services to coordinators
• requiring insurers to provide ongoing rehabilitation and return to work services if the injured worker has been unable to return to work after their entitlement to weekly benefits and medical expenses ceases. The employer’s obligations for rehabilitation and return to work are also aligned with their insurer’s obligations
• requiring self-insured employers to report injuries and any payments made to injured workers to their insurer, aligning their obligations with the existing obligations on employers insured with WorkCover Queensland
• clarifying that insurers have a discretion to accept claims submitted more than six months after the injury is diagnosed, if the injured worker has lodged a claim within 20 days of developing an incapacity for work from their injury
• extending workers’ compensation coverage to unpaid interns
• amending the meaning of injury for a psychiatric or psychological disorder to remove ‘the major’ as a qualifier for employment’s ‘significant contribution’ to the injury, and
• requiring insurers to take all reasonable steps to provide claimants with psychiatric or psychological injuries access to reasonable support services relating to their injury during claim determination.

 Amendments to Further Education and Training Act 2014

The explanatory notes describe the objectives of the amendments:

• protect the positions of apprentices and trainees, who are vulnerable workers and do not have the same bargaining powers as employers
• minimise continuing adverse impacts on apprentices’ and trainees’ training arrangements, to improve quality training outcomes
• give apprentices and trainees the best chance to complete their apprenticeship or traineeship, and the best chance for the employer to emerge with a skilled worker, hence realising the economic benefits for all parties and the community generally
• address the existing legislative gap that exists in the Further Education and Training Act 2014 to enable an employer or apprentice/trainee to seek permission from the Chief Executive to cancel the training contract
• provide greater clarity to enable the Chief Executive to resolve any issues related to issuing an apprenticeship or traineeship completion certificate, and
• clarify the obligations of the Supervising Registered Training Organisation to complete an employer resource assessment and resolve practical implementation issues with certain provisions of the Further Education and Training Act 2014.

Amendment of the TAFE Queensland Act 2013

The Bill proposes an amendment to the composition of the Board of TAFE Queensland to require that at least one member of the Board must be an Aboriginal person or a Torres Strait Islander.

Call for submissions

The committee invites submissions addressing any aspect of the Bill from all interested parties.  Guidelines for making a submission to a parliamentary committee are available here: Guide to making a submission. Please ensure your submission meets these requirements.

 The closing date for written submissions has been extended to 5.00pm Wednesday 11 September 2019.

Public hearing and public briefing

The committee proposes to hold a public hearing and public briefing on Monday 16 September 2019.  The program is available below.

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Timeline

Related Information

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