Workers’ compensation

Workers’ compensation is another example of unnecessarily complicated and expensive regulation. 

Workers’ compensation is an insurance product to protect employees who are injured in the workplace. As such, there is no reason why governments should restrict the service to State monopoly providers. It is argued that State-based schemes could not survive without the contributions of larger businesses. This argument suggests that contributions do not strictly reflect risk, with larger businesses cross-subsidising smaller businesses. This practice reduces the incentive for businesses to invest in better occupational health and safety management.

ANRA believes that businesses should have a choice of provider when satisfying their workers’ compensation obligations. Choice of provider would promote competition and encourage better pricing of risk.

Businesses operating across State boundaries must comply with a raft of different State regulations. In New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia, for example, there are statutory formulae for the assessment of premiums. In other states the premium is usually set according to a risk assessment, within statutory guidelines.

Benefits are not uniform across States. In some cases, such as injuries suffered on travel to and from work are also covered by workers compensation.