WorkCover woes exaggerated: UnionsNSW

May 24th, 2012

FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda

The NSW government is exaggerating the financial difficulties facing the state’s workers’ compensation scheme to create a “sense of crisis” to justify cutting benefits, UnionsNSW will tell an inquiry into WorkCover.

UnionsNSW Secretary Mark Lennon on Friday accused the government of “wildly exaggerating” the scheme’s troubles, disputing claims WorkCover is struggling with $4.1 billion deficit.

Premier Barry O’Farrell has said unless the deficit is reined in, premiums will skyrocket by 28 per cent, costing jobs and hurting the state’s economy.

But Mr Lennon, who will on Friday appear before a parliamentary inquiry into WorkCover, said the deficit figure touted by the government was “alarmist” and “based on a worst case scenario”.

He said the true cause of WorkCover’s financial woes were the costs of administration and private claims agents, not a blowout in compensation payouts.

“WorkCover’s unfunded liability has been wildly exaggerated to create a sense of crisis, so that the government can cut payments to sick and injured workers, in the name of allegedly helping business,” Mr Lennon said in a statement ahead of the hearings.

“It’s difficult to have a sensible discussion about WorkCover in the midst of such alarmist claims.

“Sick and injured workers must not have their entitlements cut because of a blowout in administrative costs.”

UnionsNSW has accused the government of having a “a pre-determined agenda” to cut benefits to injured workers, after Mr O’Farrell on Tuesday said parliament wouldn’t rise for the winter until the WorkCover reforms were passed.

Parliament is scheduled to sit until June 21, giving the government just five sitting days to act on the findings of the WorkCover committee report due on June 13.

At hearings on Monday, business groups and one of WorkCover’s own executives complained of an emerging “lump-sum culture” with the compensation system, and said tinkering with premiums and benefits would not solve the problems behind its multi-billion dollar deficit.