Archives
From Industrial Citizen to Therapeutic Client: The 1987 Workers' Compensation 'reforms' in NSW
Kate O'Loughlin
School of Behavioural and Community Health Sciences, The University of Sydney, Cumberland Campus, NSW
Abstract
This paper examines parliamentary political debates associated with the introduction of the 1987 workers' compensation 'reforms' in New South Wales (NSW). It shows that the 'reforms' were introduced by a Labor government to control and reduce the 'burden of cost' associated with employers' insurance premiums; and that this was to be achieved by greater regulation of the work injury experience of individuals.
This mainly involved restricting injured workers' rights to common law action and lump-sum settlements, and obliging them to return to work. Such an outcome required the transformation of workers' status from industrial citizens to clients of intensified therapeutic management, authorised and overseen by the state.
This development was underpinned by a significant change in the political culture associated with the formulation of workers' compensation policy. Central to it was the virtual disappearance of class-based parliamentary discourse and its replacement by a neoliberal discursive consensus in identifying the needs of injured workers and in developing strategies to address them.
Keywords
workers' compensation, policy discourse, injury management, citizenship and the state, the politics of workers' health, managerialism
Article Text
During the 1980s, Australian governments developed new approaches to managing employment injury (see Purse, this edition). These resulted in a burst of intensive policy development in the areas of occupational health and safety (OHS), workers' compensation and rehabilitation across all states and territories. This paper analyses the policy reforms undertaken in the NSW workers' compensation scheme that led to the introduction of the Workers' Compensation Act 1987. It is based on a study of NSW parliamentary debates and Commonwealth and State Commissions of Inquiry that informed the policy reform process.
The analysis shows how the reforms were shaped by key political interests that were played out through the parliamentary debates and in the Inquiries. Many of the so-called 'reforms' had been introduced in a piecemeal fashion or had been canvassed by both Labor and non-Labor members of the NSW parliament and commissions of inquiry over the previous forty years. They focussed almost exclusively on effective claims management, and on occupational rehabilitation and return-to-work. In the process, injured workers came to be seen as clients of the state, rather than as industrial citizens with legal rights to make claims on employers for support. At the same time, the 'burden of cost' on employers became the overriding consideration in shaping the reform process in NSW during the 1980s.
...continues...
References
Ball SJ (1990) Politics and Policy Making in Education: Explorations in Policy Sociology
Bartrip P (1985) The rise and decline of workmen's compensation, in P Weindling (ed) The Social History of Occupational Health,
Bartrip P and Burman S (1983) The Wounded Soldiers of Industry: Industrial Compensation Policy, 1833-1897
Beilharz P, Considine M and Watts R (1992) Arguing About the Welfare State: The Australian Experience
Biggins D (1995) Occupational health in Australia: issues in the 1990s, in S Short (ed) Annual Review of Health Social Sciences 5: 115-136.
Bohle P and Quinlan M (2000) Managing Occupational Health and Safety: A Multidisciplinary Approach
Bray M and Walsh P (1998) Different paths to neo-liberalism? Comparing Australia and New Zealand, Industrial Relations 37(3): 358-387.
Brooks A (1993) Occupational Health and Safety Law in Australia 4th edn, North Ryde: CCH Australia.
Bryson L (1992) Welfare and the state: Who benefits?
Cass G (1983) Workers' Benefit or Employers' Burden: A History of Workers' Compensation in New South Wales 1880-1926 Industrial Relations Research Centre, University of New South Wales.
Connell RW and Irving TH (1992) Class structure in Australian history: Documents, narrative, and argument
Considine M (1996) Market bureaucracy? Exploring the contending rationalities of contemporary administrative regimes, Labour and Industry 7(1): 1-27.
Considine M (1994) Public Policy: A Critical Approach
Considine M (1991) The Politics of Reform: Workers' Compensation from Woodhouse to Workcare, Centre for Applied Social Research, Deakin University, Geelong.
Conybeare AT (1970) Report on the Feasibility of Establishing a System for the Rehabilitation of Workers in New South Wales, NSW Government Printer, Sydney.
Dalton T, Draper M, Weeks W and Wiseman J (1996) Making Social Policy in Australia: An Introduction
Edgeworth B (1987) WorkCover, TransCover and the legal profession, Legal Service Bulletin 12(4): 142-144.
Fairbrother P, Svensen S and Teicher J (1997) The withering away of the Australian state: privatisation and its implications for labour, Labour and Industry 8(2): 1-32.
Fenna A (1998) Introduction to Australian Public Policy, South Melbourne: Longman.
Hancock L (1999) Health, public sector restructuring and the market state, in L Hancock (ed) Health Policy in the Market State
Hutchins B and Harrison A (1966) A History Of Factory Legislation
Industry Commission (1994) Workers' Compensation in Australia: Industry Commission Report No 36, Canberra: AGPS.
Johnstone R and Quinlan M (1993) The origins, management and regulation of occupational illness: an overview, in M Quinlan (ed) Work and Health: The Origins, Management and Regulation of Occupational Illness, South Melbourne: Macmillan Education Australia, pp.1-32.
Kable S and Chinnery D (1993) Rehabilitation performance and initiatives under WorkCover NSW, Proceedings of the Second National Rehabilitation Conference, Sydney.
Low A (1987) Workers compensation changes in NSW: who wins? Legal Services Bulletin 12(4): 140-143.
Maddock R (1993) Economic policy in the 1990s, in A Hede and S Prasser (eds) Policy-making in volatile times
Markey R (1994) In case of oppression: The life and times of the Labor Council of New South Wales
Muetzfeldt M (1999) Contracting out in the health sector, in L Hancock (ed) Health Policy in the Market State
Muetzfeldt M (1992) Economic rationalism in its social context, in M Muetzfeldt (ed) Society, State and Politics in Australia, Sydney: Pluto Press, pp.187-215.
National Rehabilitation and Compensation Scheme Committee of Inquiry (Woodhouse Committee) (1974) Compensation and Rehabilitation in Australia:Report of the National Committee of Inquiry, Vol 1&2. Canberra: AGPS.
New South Wales Parliamentary Debates (Hansard) 1926-1987.
New South Wales Workers' Compensation Scheme Options for Reform (1986) Discussion Paper, Sydney: Government Printing Service.
Occupational Health and Safety Act NSW (1983)
Pearse W (1985) Safe new world: occupational health and safety, Australian Journal of Law and Society 2(1): 177-199.
Phegan C (1985) From compensation to care - a change of direction for Accident victims? Adelaide Law Review 10: 74-85.
Pollitt C (1993) Managerialism and the Public Services
Pusey M (1991) Economic Rationalism in Canberra: A Nation-Building State Changes its Mind
Quinlan M (1993) The industrial relations of occupational health and safety, in M Quinlan (ed) Work and Health: The Origins, Management and Regulation of Occupational Illness, South Melbourne: Macmillan Australia, pp.140-169.
Quinlan M and Bohle P (1991) Managing Occupational Health and Safety in Australia,
Ranald P (1996) Redefinition of the public sector: serving citizens or customers? In A Farrar and J Inglis (eds) Keeping it Together: State and Civil Society in Australia, Sydney: Pluto Press, pp.92-113.
Rees S (1995) The fraud and the fiction, in S Rees and G Rodley (eds) The human costs of managerialism, Sydney: Pluto Press, pp.15-27.
Reynolds C (1995) Public health law in Australia,
Stewart D (1986) Workers' Compensation and Social Security: An Overview, SWRC Reports and Proceedings No 63, Social Welfare Research Centre, The University of New South Wales, Kensington.
Stilwell F (1993) Economic rationalism: sound foundations for policy? In S Rees, G Rodley and F Stilwell (eds) Beyond the Market: Alternatives to Economic Rationalism, Sydney: Pluto Press, pp.27-37.
Williams TG (1981) Report of Commission of Inquiry into Occupational Health and Safety Volumes 1-14, Sydney: Government Printing Service.
Workers' Compensation Act NSW (1926)
Workers' Compensation Act NSW (1987)
Yeatman A (1998) Activism and the Policy Process
Yeatman A (1990) Bureaucrats, Technocrats, Femocrats: Essays on the Contemporary Australian State,
eContent Home
