Minns Government smashed on Workers Comp

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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…