Qld. workers face being stripped of right to travel compo

Sometimes people have to take responsibility for themselves!

WORKERS injured on their way to and from work face being stripped of their right to compensation under a shake-up to WorkCover Queensland.

The State Government is considering dumping journey and recess claims, which last year cost the scheme $50 million for 6000 cases. The Chamber of Commerce and Industry Queensland will today increase pressure on Attorney-General Jarrod Bleijie to introduce reforms to WorkCover, which also include stopping staff from suing employers for minor injuries suffered at work.

Workers who are involved in car accidents or hurt themselves in other ways while travelling to and from work can apply for compensation.

However, CCIQ believes the system is being rorted by staff and want journey claims dumped so business can cut its premiums. Employers pay a workers' compensation premium based on the wages, their industry classification and the number of claims in the past.

Statistics show most claims are made in southeast Queensland.

Business lobbying has alarmed the Queensland Council of Unions president John Battams, who said he had been leaked information that Mr Bleijie was getting ready to buckle to the big end of town. However, Mr Bleijie made it clear that no decision had been made.

"The Government is currently considering a report from the Inquiry into the Operation of Queensland's Workers' Compensation Scheme," Mr Bleijie said.

Mr Bleijie said lodgements for journey claims had been stable for 10 years but more money was being paid because of a growth in wages and medical costs. He said depending on the circumstances of the injury, the motor accident insurance scheme (CTP) could also provide coverage.

WorkCover was able to recover costs of the statutory claim from the CTP insurer if the person subsequently lodged a successful damages claim under that scheme, he said.

A review of the scheme was required by law and was completed this year. A Parliamentary Committee recommended that journey claims and the right to sue remain.

A briefing note sent to Mr Bleijie in April - and obtained by Saturday's Courier-Mail - revealed that WorkCover had costed three options in relation to ditching journey claims. It modelled scrapping it for all workers, scrapping it for all workers except police and scrapping for all workers except police and emergency service workers.

Mr Battams said workers would be left in the lurch if the Government dumped both provisions.

He said Queensland's scheme was fair and sustainable.

"The nature of our state is that people have to travel long distances to get to work on bad roads," he said.  "Many of them have no choice."

He accused Mr Bleijie of deliberately waiting until after the Federal election to make a decision.

CCIQ spokesman Nick Behrens said it would help business if the Government restricted access to compensation. Mr Behrens said while business wanted journey claims scrapped it really wanted to stop workers for suing for minor injuries.

He said injured workers should be given a set amount depending on their injury.

"The common law process is an expensive way of awarding compensation to employees compared to the statutory process, particularly for minor injuries in the lower levels of whole of person injury.

"The average common law claim settlement, $120,150, is approximately 17 times more than the average cost of a statutory claim, $7070," Mr Behrens said.

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CONFESSIONS OF A FACELESS FOOL. THE REAL BILL SHORTEN STORY

Bill Shorten who is running for the federal Labor Party leadership has more skeletons in the closet than any other federal Labor politician which is a sign that nothing has changed and that the Labor Party has learnt nothing from their mistakes.

Worse still for Bill is that some of those skeletons are coming back to life with a fresh Fair Work Commission inquiry into corruption at the Heath Services Union.

Add this to numerous recent incidents, many covered on this site, and Bill Shorten if elected as leader will be nothing more than the Mafia Don of the Labor Party and the voters will know this. So let’s have a look at some of those recent incidents and it is the HSU we will focus on as Bill Shorten is right up to neck in it. He claims he put the HSU into administration to clean up the corruption, the reality is all he wanted to do is put his own crooks and cronies in charge of the HSU.

New Fair Work Commission inquiry

It was reported on Friday (20/9/13) that the Fair Work Commission has started an inquiry into the Health Services Union regarding new allegations of corruption and cronyism. The new allegations relate to this year and they have Bill Shorten’s fingerprints all over them.

Some of the new allegations are: “Jobs were not advertised, but were instead handed to factional Labor Party allies, former councillors or council staff and their relatives, and a former state MP, Nathan Murphy.” (Click here to read more)

It is Bill who put the Union into administration to sideline Kathy Jackson and even worked the phones to do so which shows up in a couple of Statutory Declarations. (Click here to read the Statutory Declarations) He had his preferred candidate, Michael Moore, a corrupt former judge appointed as the administrator. Then he supported the new crooks that are now running the show.

This site has written three recent posts on the matter which has helped put the spotlight on the HSU and Bill Shorten. The first being on the 14th July in a post titled “Bill Shorten tried to stab Julia Gillard in the back one last time. Return of corruption at the HSU” (Click here to read) and then on the 20th July in a post titled “Does Kevin Rudd support the Bill Shorten backed “Kimberley Kitching for Senate movement”? Andrew Bolt does!” (Click here to read) and on the 18th August  a post titled “The return of the Labor Party, HSU, stolen money, defamation and a prostitute. And this time it isn’t Craig Thomson” (Click here to read)

I have spoken to a couple of people with first hand knowledge of the current complaint and who are personally involved and this story has some real legs and if it goes as far as it should then Bill Shorten will have plenty of questions that he needs to answer.

How can Bill Shorten be an alternative Prime Minister given his intimate involvement in the return of corruption at the HSU?

Other recent handiwork by Bill Shorten

I will not mention them all and leave it up to commentators to write their favourite corruption tale about Bill Shorten, and there many. But one of my favourites is when Bill Shorten as Employment and Industrial Relations Minister appointed Bernie Riordan, secretary Electrical Trades Union New South Wales, as a Fair Work Commissioner. Bernie Riordan at the time was a thief on the run from his own members after he had stolen $1.8 million from the union. Bernie Riordan pocketed the $1.8 million in directors fees from industry boards he sat on that was meant to go to the Union.

In a previous post I wrote:

"At the end of February 2012 Electrical Trades Union New South Wales secretary Bernie Riordan “accused of pocketing $1.8 million in directors fees was appointed a commissioner of Fair Work Australia just the day after long-running legal action against him was withdrawn.” (Click here to read more) I wonder who put the call through to make sure the legal action was dropped so he could be appointed to FWA?

“Bill Shorten was the one who appointed Bernie Riordan as a commissioner. He did not just decide to appoint him the day after the legal proceedings had been dropped. The planning for appointing him would have been weeks in the making. It looks to me that Bill Shorten did a deal to appoint Bernie Riordan as a commissioner to save embarrassing the union movement and the Gillard Government even more. He probably did a deal with the people who launched the legal action against Bernie Riordan along the lines that he would appoint him a commissioner and they could move up the pecking order in the union and Labor Party. The point to this is that is consistent with how Bill Shorten operates.”

Then there is Bill Shorten’s penchant for stabbing Prime Ministers in the back. The voters will not forget this.

Lastly but not least is the infamous interview Bill did with the Melbourne paper the Herald Sun in 2012 denying a rumour and claiming he had called his lawyers but failed to say what the rumour was. Bill seems to think if he does an interview and denies something without saying what it is, then that is the end of it. Imagine if Bill was PM? What would he be like then? I wrote a post after his interview saying what the rumour was but never heard from his lawyers. I wonder why? (Click here to read the post)

The Labor Party Leadership and why you should care

It is up to the opposition to keep the government of the day honest and accountable whether that is the Labor Party or Coalition (Liberal Party and National Party). Governments that go unchallenged and unchecked become riddled with corruption which is what happened in NSW and other States where there were weak opposition political parties for long periods. It is also important that the opposition at least be a possibility of an alternative government which keeps the pressure on the current government. With Bill Shorten as leader the Labor Party will never be a possibility of an alternate government as he is rotten to the core. The Labor Party needs major reform to weed out corruption which Bill Shorten will never do given he is at the heart of it.

The title of this post is a slight take on the title of the book “Confessions of a Faceless Man” written by Bill Shorten’s successor at the Australian Workers Union Paul Howes who is very much in the Bill Shorten mould.

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Goward campaign a vicious vendetta

DESTRUCTION of the Fairfax media brand and what remains of “our” ABC’s reputation continues apace with the vendetta being pursued against Pru Goward, the NSW Family and Community Services (FACS) Minister.

The media organisations are running a strident campaign for the laughable rump that ?remains? of ?the ?NSW Labor Party and the real force within the opposition, the trade union movement.

Over the past five weeks there have been more than 50 questions to Goward, many based on leaked documents, and most from the former minister, Linda Burney, whose legacy of disaster has been swept under the carpet.

But the media attacks on Goward have nothing to do with competency, they are all about the blatant partisanship of the two Left-wing organisations which have been prosecuting a union battle against genuine reform of the sector.

I certainly have nothing against media campaigns against governmental failure, indeed, The Daily and Sunday Telegraphs were instrumental in disclosing facts which forced NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell to dismiss former Finance Minister Greg Pearce for a breach of the Ministerial Code of Conduct.

The assault on Goward is entirely another matter and led FACS Director-General Michael Coutts-Trotter, a respected public servant (who happens to be ?married to former federal Labor health minister Tanya Plibersek) to issue a strongly-worded warning to FACS staffers on Thursday.

In his unprecedented admonition, he slammed the unnamed persons who provided a copy of an internal death review report to the ABC.

He said the profound breach of trust was completely unacceptable, breaching the privacy of the little boy who died, his siblings, his family and friends. The report contained the most intimate details of the family, “information that is gathered and held in strictest confidence”.

The leaked material “contains unproven allegations about many people,” he said, and breached the privacy of those who reported their concerns? about? the child to the department. ?Revealing such information increases the chance that others will not report concerns about other children at risk.

“It is quite possible that the person or people responsible thought that some good would flow from their actions,” Coutts-Trotter wrote. “If that’s the case, they are quite wrong.

“I have noted only dismay, shock and hurt among our colleagues inside the department and from the family of the little boy who died.”

The ABC’s 7.30 Report led its program with an anonymous attack on Goward by union members last Wednesday, the first full day of the new Abbott government.

The ABC report on the death of the little boy mentioned earlier led to an immediate suppression order on the case, which is still before the courts.

Lawyers for the mother in the case noted that the ABC had made no contact before the broadcast, and that The Sydney Morning Herald had named and published photographs of the dead boy even though the naming and publication of images of those deceased who identify as Aboriginal is regarded as being highly offensive to their families. The photo has now been removed from the Fairfax website.

Leaking of FACS files is a breach of the Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act, subsequent reporting of such material by the media is also illegal, as is the publication or broadcasting in any way the name of a person that connects that person with criminal proceedings under the S15A of the Children (Criminal Proceedings) Act.

Such has been the enthusiasm of the ABC and Fairfax to act as spear carriers for the dysfunctional NSW ALP and union moment that their reports may well lead to a plea for a mistrial.

The campaign to discredit Goward is viciously and bitterly personal. The ABC and Fairfax cannot acknowledge that her predecessor, Burney, had a shocking record.

In attempting to cover up Burney’s ministerial failure, the SMH even published one article in July taking Goward to task for FACS’ actions in relation to the death of six-year-old Kiesha Weippeart - who died when Burney was minister in 2010.

The record - which the ABC and Fairfax will not publish - shows that under Burney, case workers were seeing just one in five children and now are seeing one in four, or more than 4000 more than they were under Labor.

There were 83 child deaths in 2012, under Burney in 2010 there were 139 - and there is greater transparency with an annual Child Death Report now being published.

Children’s lives should be above politics, but they are not when Labor and its media allies see their core ideology under attack.

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ABC's programme "Q&A" of 23rd.

Tonight provides further evidence of bias at the ABC. David Suzuki appears on Q&A without any other panelists. Normally Q&A consists of a panel of six people with Tony Jones. Occasionally there will be just two (and Tony Jones) – such as when Chris Bowen and Joe Hockey appeared on 19 August 2013.

Very rarely there will be just one panelist, like tonight’s show with David Suzuki. The previous examples are:

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd (2 September 2013 and 8 February 2010)

Prime Minister Julia Gillard (6 May 2013, 11 June 2012, 11 July 2011, 14 March 2011, 9 August 2010)

Former Prime Minister John Howard (25 October 2010)

Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott (16 August 2010)

Leader of the Opposition Malcolm Turnbull (13 October 2008)

Retiring Leader of the Greens Senator Bob Brown (23 April 2012)

With the exception of Bob Brown (who was at least leader of a minor party in the Parliament of Australia), all the others have been Prime Ministers or Opposition Leaders.

Now comes David Suzuki with no particular claim to fame except on the Q&A website as a: "Renowned Environmental Scientist and Campaigner"

How much did the ABC pay David Suzuki to appear? Have they provided young ladies to accompany him as is his wont?

It is time to privatise the ABC.

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