Impact of NSW Workers Compensation Legislation 2012 - Business and Economics
Project Name: Impact of NSW Workers Compensation Legislation 2012
In partnershipwith:
Unions NSWResearch team:
Professor Ray Markey, Chief Investigator
Dr Louise Thornthwaite, Chief Investigator
Dr Sharron O'Neill, Chief Investigator
Dr.Sasha Holley, Chief Investigator
- Funded by:
- Macquarie University Enterprise Partnership Research Grant
- Unions NSW
- Year: 2013 to 2015
Aims:
- to review the impact of changes to NSW Workers Compensation legislation on injured workers' health and welfare; and
- to establish benchmarks and methodology for ongoing monitoring of the impact of the legislation to December 2015.
Significance: The 2012 NSW legislation for workers' compensation revised access to compensation, and level and thresholds for entitlements. A NSW Parliamentary inquiry into the impact of the changes is due in early 2014.
Outcomes: Our report was submitted to the Parliamentary inquiry, has built our relationship with Unions NSW and provided the basis for ongoing monitoring of the impact of the legislation. A number of refereed journal articles on the issue are currently in the pipeline, and Professor Markey was interviewed on the issue and the report on the ABC's 7.30 NSW on 7 February 2014.
Stage One First Report (November 2013): The Impact on Injured Workers of Changes to NSW Workers' Compensation: June 2012 Legislative Amendments (PDF)
Research Plan
The project is envisaged in three Stages. Stage 1 has been completed with the initial report published in November 2013, as part of a long term monitoring exercise to end of 2015. Stages 2 and 3 will be undertaken using benchmarks and a research framework developed in Stage 1.
Stage 1 for this project was an exploratory and benchmarking exercise. It explored the range of data available, set benchmarks to compare against in subsequent years, and produced an analysis of trends in the first 18 months of operation of the new system and the process of transition.