PRESS RELEASE:

 “GOOD NEWS STORY FOR INJURED WORKERS”

Amendments to the Accident Compensation Act were introduced into the Victorian parliament yesterday and are scheduled to be passed when the parliament resumes in February.

“The amendments are the most substantial changes to the WorkCover jurisdiction in over 10 years,” says Andrea Tsalamandris, an accredited specialist in personal injury law and a partner at Holding Redlich.

“These reforms have been a long time coming. They offer significant increases to injured workers.”

“It is hard being on WorkCover. These amendments increase benefits. They will help make it easier to keep paying the mortgage when an injury stops you working.”

“In past years, injured workers rights have tended to be eroded, but this Act will bring about greater benefits to victims of work accidents.”

“Despite the Government’s ongoing focus on work place safety, there are still almost 30,000 work injury claims per year. For those people forced onto WorkCover, usually through no fault of their own, it is a tough time. “

“Now the claims must be processed faster and once accepted the worker will receive a higher percentage of pre-injury wages, including for the first time, superannuation benefits.”

“The weekly payment rate of 80% will bring injured workers in line with what transport accident victims receive. But there will be an additional entitlement in that superannuation benefits will now be paid for injured workers. These had not been paid to injured workers in the past. This meant injured workers were financially disadvantaged though no fault of their own. Although the new amendments only require superannuation payments to be paid for the first 52 weeks, it is a start in recognising the importance of superannuation being paid to injured workers.”

“The amendments will also bring increased compensation to workers who suffer a permanent psychiatric injury. In the past these workers had been paid much less compensation than workers with an equivalent level of physical injury.  This is a real benefit to workers suffering stress injuries and makes up for years of discrimination against such workers.”

For additional comments, please contact Andrea Tsalamandris on 0419 899 275