Sarah Hunt: NSW workers compensation reforms

Sarah Hunt analyses the proposed changes to New South Wales workers compensation laws and what they could mean for injured workers, employers, insurers, and the broader legal system.

The conversation explores psychological injury claims, access to compensation, political pressure surrounding reform, and the broader question of how legal systems respond to workplace injury in a changing economy.

Sarah Hunt is National Practice Leader, Workers’ Compensation, Shine Lawyers.

Music by Out To The World, Bulletin World, courtesy of Epidemic Sound

Ruminants is a legal podcast series that goes beyond the headlines to unpack the ideas shaping law, policy, and public life. Hosted by Louis White and produced by BarNet/Open Law.

Produced by Angela Stretch and published by BarNet Open Law. The team behind the JADE legal research platform and other legal informatics.

Music by Out To The World, Bulletin World, courtesy of Epidemic Sound.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Welcome to Ruminants, a legal podcast exploring the ideas, decisions, and forces shaping the profession in Australia today. Hosted by Louis White and produced by Barnett and Open Law, each episode brings together leading voices from across the legal community, from judges and barristers to academics and regulators for thoughtful, in-depth conversations on everything from AI and regulatory reform to major court decisions and the evolving role of lawyers.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

I'm Louis White, a seasoned journalist who has covered major news stories in Australia and England for the past three decades. I've always been fascinated with the law, and in 2025, I completed my jurisdictor at the University of New South Wales, which has enabled me to further my practical understanding and knowledge of the law, and now I'm the host of the Rumnutes Podcast series.

SPEAKER_02 1:26

Uh, what you're doing, how long you've been in the role, and your experience with New South Wales workers' compensation claims.

SPEAKER_03 1:32

So I am a legal practice manager and special counsel at Shine Lawyers. I've been in that role for a number of years. I've been working at Shine for the past 12 years of my career. So I look after a group of lawyers and we focus on all different types of personal injury claims. So motor vehicle accidents, public liability, workplace injuries, and historical sexual abuse claims. For me personally, in my practice, I've sort of got a particular focus on workplace injuries and the claims that you get out of that. So your statutory benefits claims and then your common law claims for damages in the workplace context. And I've always at different points I've focused solely on that area of practice, and then at other points I've had a mixed bag.

SPEAKER_02 2:19

So what made you actually personally want to get into that area of law?

SPEAKER_03 2:22

I think PI I fell into, if I'm being honest, when I was at uni. I got a job working for a barrister, and she happened to do, amongst other things, personal injury. And then that led to another job in another firm doing personal injury. And for me, I was attracted to the people side of it. So the changing somebody's life and helping them when they were at a difficult point in their life, as opposed to other areas of law. So that that that human element to it is really what attracted me to PI. And then workers' compensation, it was just a natural thing that happened, and it has a real mixture of the technical side with that human element. So that's what keeps me in that space, I think.

SPEAKER_02 3:12

And I imagine you find it personally satisfying when you win a case. From your perspective, what have been the biggest challenge for injured workers in New South Wales, say over the last five, ten years?

SPEAKER_03 3:22

Putting aside their injuries and the uncertainty that comes with that, I think the biggest challenge for workers is dealing with the claims management scale, like the claims process and claims management. So it's really not uncommon for us to hear about workers who have had 10 different case managers over the course of a couple of years who are consistently dealing with payments being made late, not being able to get answers to questions, feeling like they're not being heard, or they can't speak to anyone that actually knows something about their case on an individual level, not just as sort of a number. So you take somebody that's injured and already struggling as a result of those injuries, and then you add into it that experience, and I think that is very difficult for injured workers to navigate through.

SPEAKER_02 4:18

Did I care expanding the number of insurance providers from four to six help in case claim management, or is it still just stayed the same?

SPEAKER_03 4:26

I don't think that it's had any great impact on that part of the scheme, to be honest.

SPEAKER_02 4:31

Are you surprised by that? Or has not spent up the process or done any has there been any benefits to expanding the range of insurance providers?

SPEAKER_03 4:39

I I mean I think expansion is not a bad thing. I think having, you know, not a monopoly of providers is is a good thing, but have I seen any significant practical flow-on effects that have benefited workers? Not really, no.

SPEAKER_02 4:54

So the New Zealand Government has just introduced significant reforms through the Workers' Compensation Legislation Amendment Act of 2025, which was passed from Parliament on the 18th of November 2025, and the Workers' Compensation Legislation Amendment Reform and Monetizations Act, which was passed on February 4, 2026. What problems have the are these changes to legislation trying to solve?

SPEAKER_03 5:21

In a nutshell, when the government first introduced the changes, essentially they were saying this scheme is in dire financial straits, um, it can't, it's unsustainable, it can't be sustained, and the biggest cause of that is psychological injuries claim. There's too many of them, they take too long, people are on the system too long, they're not going back to work, and it's costing too much money. That was sort of the the government's uh explanation. And you know, that these reforms are going to increase the effective operation of the scheme and create. I think there was in the initial media release there was this terminology of creating a culture of prevention of injuries. That's what these reforms were supposed to do.

SPEAKER_02 6:06

How can a government create a culture of prevention of injuries?

SPEAKER_03 6:10

I think that my my view has always been that these changes do not that there's nothing about them that creates a culture of prevention of injuries. It creates a culture of prevention of claims, which is a very different thing.

SPEAKER_02 6:22

So explain how it's creating prevention of culture of claims then.

SPEAKER_03 6:26

With your psychological injuries claims, what happens now is it's now significantly harder for workers to lodge and have a compensable psychological injuries claim in the first place. If they are on the scheme, if they are through those initial hurdles, they're now cut off from meaningful support much sooner than people with physical injuries were or otherwise. And then even if you do have workers with psychological injuries that are injured and they have genuine psychological injuries that are quite significant, the threshold that they now have to meet to reach to be able to claim damages for that if it occurred in circumstances where the employer is negligent is so high that the majority of claims aren't going to get to that point. The majority of workers aren't going to be able to get any sort of compensation for it. And the sort of onerous requirements of the system, I think, in practice, when you add all of those things together, is just eventually, not straight away, but eventually going to result in less claims being made for psychological injuries. There's nothing about increasing the WPI that creates a culture of prevention of the injury in the first place. It just changes the threshold that the worker has to meet.

SPEAKER_02 7:45

So the threshold is now higher?

SPEAKER_03 7:47

Yes, significantly higher.

SPEAKER_02 7:49

So how does that actually help the average average person? Average worker.

SPEAKER_03 7:53

Well, you know, that's been the one of the big key points of discussion is the raising of that threshold and how onerous it is and how difficult it is and how fundamentally unwell someone has to be to be at that point, at that threshold. It's gonna mean the majority of people aren't going to be able to seek damages for their injuries.

SPEAKER_02 8:17

Would you say then the legislative amendments are actually trying to reduce government payouts?

SPEAKER_03 8:22

I think in practice, what's going to happen is that there's going to be less claims for common law damages being made against employers, the New South Wales government being one of those employers. And that's going to be mean less less claims for damages being paid out to workers.

SPEAKER_02 8:40

Do you see these reforms as being improvements to the system, any aspect of it?

SPEAKER_03 8:44

On the whole, no. On the whole, it's it's injured workers that are suffering with the reforms. That's what I would say.

SPEAKER_02 8:50

Because I think they actually put in a submission or put out a press release regarding there wasn't proper consultation with the second legislative changes. And they talked about I think payouts claims stopped at 130 weeks now for psychological injuries and so forth. Were any of those issues they raised taken into consideration and amended in legislation?

SPEAKER_03 9:13

No, so what you had is the reform or the exposure draft was published, and then the there was a small period of consultation that apparently occurred, and then the bill was introduced, and it went through the lower house, and at that point it was referred off to the public accountability and works committee for a review. And that process was basically pushed through extremely quickly. And the second bill, the modernization bill, was introduced before the process of the first review of the first bill had finished. And then the Public Accountability and Works Committee released their report in November. The changes that were made between the original bill and the modernization bill, there was some changes made between those two, but nothing that really dealt with the crux of the concerns of stakeholders that had been presenting in those hearings and addressing the underlying concerns.

SPEAKER_02 10:12

So SI, RA, iCare, have they made any comments regarding the changes to legislation that you're aware of?

SPEAKER_03 10:19

They participated in that review process. Then there's now they're sort of publishing on their website in terms of you know what do these changes mean for businesses, what do they mean for insurers, and what do they mean for workers? So they're now that sort of the law's in place now, this is kind of how it works.

SPEAKER_02 10:34

So if someone has a psychological injury, what is the process they have to go to prove that?

SPEAKER_03 10:40

Now, under the old scheme, when somebody had a psychological injury, nothing sat around that in terms of it could only be compensable if it happened within certain scenarios. There was no framework around that under the old scheme. So now what exists is basically a three-pronged test that a worker will have to meet for them to be able to have a compensable psychological injury. So they have to have either a relevant event or a series of relevant events be the cause of the injury, and then they have to have a real and there has to be a real and direct connection between their employment and the relevant event or series of events, and employment has to be the main contributing factor to the injuries. So then what you have is relevant event is defined. And now that means that you can only have a psychological injury if it is grounded in things like uh exposure to a traumatic incident or witnessing traumatic incidents or an act of violence or something like that. And then certain interpersonal, if you could call it that, interpersonal conflicts being sexual or racial harassment, bullying, and excessive work demands. And then each of those things is further is defined even further. So this is sort of the new definitions that you've got to get through in the first place to actually be able to have a compensable psychological injury.

SPEAKER_02 12:09

And can those events be one-off or also sustained over a period of time?

SPEAKER_03 12:13

So, for example, bullying is now defined and it requires it to be, it can't just be a single event. Like it got to be multiple instances of it. And and bullying was never defined under the previous legislation. So it wasn't a concept that was defined in any way, and now it is.

SPEAKER_02 12:28

And how do you prove it?

SPEAKER_03 12:30

With evidence with evidence, basically. That's what's going to change, I think, now for lawyers is the gathering the evidence to actually actually meet the new definitions and establish what you need to establish. Needing to have, you know, in the case of bullying, not just vague references to things happening, but you know, dates, events, you know, really good documenting of the instances that have occurred, that sort of thing, and looking at all of the different tests that now exist for those relevant events and series of conducts and things like that.

SPEAKER_02 13:08

And would the work art need to get psychological evaluation, say, to prove the effect all that bullying had on them?

SPEAKER_03 13:16

Yeah, so always with psychological injuries, even now, or even under the what I suppose now is the old system, you always have to always have to have a diagnosable psychiatric condition. You know, a lot of people will have stress at work, but stress isn't a diagnosis that satisfies the definition that of an injury. So you you need to have proof of the injury by way of diagnosis from a doctor.

SPEAKER_02 13:42

And what falls outside of a relevant event now?

SPEAKER_03 13:45

There's no recourse for people that uh suffer harassment due to age or disability. So that's not one of the categories that necessarily falls within it. And then I think because of the tightening of the definitions, you're going to find in practice that a lot of the conduct that previously maybe would have gotten through and been the cause of an injury now isn't going to, in terms of you know, excessive work demands and things like that.

SPEAKER_02 14:14

So do you think this helps or disadvantages the worker? I think it disadvantages the worker. They need far more proof now, don't they?

SPEAKER_03 14:21

They do, yeah. And you know, with bullying and harassment and excessive work demands, there's now a requirement if there's a dispute that a worker has to take it through the Industrial Relations Commission first to get a finding that the conduct did actually occur before they can have access to workers' compensation benefits. And that's still an area that we don't know much about in practice how that's going to work. But that's adding another layer to it for injured workers that's never existed before.

SPEAKER_02 14:49

What could the time frame be? I mean, I know every case is in different, but do you have a rough time frame from the start of claim to finish?

SPEAKER_03 14:56

Honestly, at this point in time with all of these changes and with the uncertainty that's going to exist, I don't think you'd be able to give somebody a real like a time frame at this point in time with any great confidence. Because, you know, how long is it going to take to go through the Industrial Relations Commission? How is that going to work in practice? The last time there were changes this big was in 2012. And at that point there was a huge bottleneck created within the workers' compensation system because of the reforms and people trying to get claims through. And that caused significant delays at the other end in the Personal Injury Commission because they were trying to cope with a volume of claims and you know, things like medical appointments that you used to get in a month. It was all of a sudden taking six months to get that medical appointment, not because of anything other than the volume of people going through the process at a particular pain point and that just practically resulting in these significant delays.

SPEAKER_02 15:56

Do you think we'll now see legitimate claims excluded?

SPEAKER_03 15:59

I think in practice, you'll probably find that there won't be any sort of immediate reduction in claims being lodged. But I think whenever, inevitably, whenever you have a reform like this, what you then have is a period of time where everything is tested. You know, all these new sections and the application of this definition is tested by people lodging claims and taking them through to decisions at at the commission level and then matters being appealed through the court system and things like that. So we're probably going to find that there's claims that are going through, there's going to be a lot of claims going through, and eventually there's going to be more and more decisions that sort of set the framework around how these sections now apply. And once that starts to happen, you know, if they don't meet the test or they don't meet the common law test, they're not legitimate claims anymore because they don't meet what the legislation needs them to meet. Are these people genuinely injured and have they genuinely suffered as a result of something that's happened at work? Well, probably, yes. But they're not going to meet this new framework that they have to meet, and that therefore makes them not legitimate.

SPEAKER_02 17:02

And so just what happens if someone can't work just through psychological harm? They quit their job, they can't work somewhere else. How are they supposed to live?

SPEAKER_03 17:09

Good question. So under the system, let's just say that person has a workers' compensation claim, a legitimate workers' compensation claim, and they are on the system, they're getting some weekly benefits. They're now, unless their WPI is, you know, really significant, they're going to get cut off at 130 weeks of weekly benefits. And they're not going to have any more entitlement to weeklies. And the entitlement to or the the capacity to work is not the same thing as a WPI. Like they're not, it's not the same thing. Your WPI, part of the assessment of your WPI is your employability and your ability to work. But that's only one of the factors that makes up what your WPI is. So just because somebody has a certain WPI, it doesn't equate that they can or they can't work. So this person who's got a legitimate claim is going to get cut off at 130 weeks unless their WPI is so high. And they're not going to be able to pursue damages claims against the employer, even if they were injured in circumstances which were negligent. If they don't reach the WPI, they don't get to do anything about it. And so then they're left to what? You know, NDIS, centrelink, like that's practically what's happening or going to happen for these workers.

SPEAKER_02 18:23

So it's a very messy situation, isn't it? So the WPI, which is whole person impairment, those reforms have been changed and they've induced tighter rules around permanent impairment assessments, particularly limiting workers to one principal assessment unless there's a 10% deterioration. So what does that mean in practice and how is that assessed?

SPEAKER_03 18:42

WPI or whole person impairment, for there's some things that are changing about that for psychological injuries only, and then there's some things that are changing about it for both physical and psychological injuries. And the introduction of the single assessor process is happening for both physical and psychological injuries. So basically now, under the system, what happens is you are able to, when you're making an impairment claim, you're able to go off and get your evidence about what your level of impairment is, and the insurer goes off and gets theirs. And you might be able to agree on what it is, but if you can't, you go to the commission and the commission appoints an independent doctor, and that doctor makes a decision about your level of impairment. Since 2012, workers have the majority of workers have had the restriction on only being able to make one of those claims. So we've kind of been navigating that dynamic for a little while now and sort of the timing of when to make a claim. So you're using up your because you've only got one of them to do. But now with the single assessment process, workers aren't don't have the opportunity to go and get their own evidence about what your impairment is. Neither does the insurer. You just either agree on a doctor that you go and see together, or SIRA appoints one for you, and that doctor does the assessment of your level of impairment. So it's taking away that opportunity to go and get your own evidence about what your level of WPI is.

SPEAKER_02 20:02

What's the advantage in that?

SPEAKER_03 20:03

Well, this is the uh in terms of, you know, when this legislation first came out and and it's going to increase the operational efficiencies of the scheme, I don't like I don't really see how that change is going to do that or what is going to flow from that of significant value. I think it's quite problematic to have people not able to get their own evidence on that point when that point is so important, so significant, what your WPI is.

SPEAKER_02 20:32

And so are all these doctors specialists or like GPs or what?

SPEAKER_03 20:36

Yeah, no, they they'd be they're specialists in you know whatever relevant body system needs to be assessed. So, you know, your orthopedics, your psychiatrists, your gastroenterologists, that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_02 20:48

But what if the medical specialist undervalues the first assessment with regards to impairment? What's the rights then for the worker to challenge that?

SPEAKER_03 20:56

I think that's going to be a point of sort of exploration and litigation as those decisions start to happen in terms of testing whether there are any appeal rights or how binding it is and that sort of thing. It's going to be an area of development.

SPEAKER_02 21:13

And do you see we'll see more litigation around the threshold levels or I think you will.

SPEAKER_03 21:19

I think in practice we will.

SPEAKER_02 21:20

Okay, so the return to work intensive programs, the 2026 Act introduced a return to work intensive program with up to 52 additional weeks of support. How does this program actually work in practice?

SPEAKER_03 21:33

I don't know at this point. I think that's the short answer is I don't know how it's going to work. I think it's, you know, if it's a genuine, well placed support, then it could be a good thing. You know, the return to work issue and statistics around that. I think it's important that we recognize that it's not just an injured worker that is a part of the process of returning to work. For a return to work to be successful, you've got to have an insurance. Engaging with it, a worker and an employer engaging in it. And the reforms seem focused on making the injured worker bear the burden of fixing the scheme and the issues with return to work statistics and not spreading any of that burden around to the employers or the insurers. I think the employer plays a really key role in a return to work being successful and not being harmful. It's really common for injured workers to get fit for suitable duties, have restrictions on what they can do in their return to work and go to work and be expected to do things outside of those duties. And then they're stuck in this sort of trap of, well, I I want to get back to work and I want to try and get back to work, but I can't do those things. But my employer's telling me that's what I need to do. And if I don't do that, am I, you know, going to jeopardize my ability to go back to that place of employment and that sort of thing? So the employer plays a really significant role in return to work being successful. Hopefully, maybe this intensive return to work intensive program will help on that front. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out, I think.

SPEAKER_02 23:10

Could you see workers being pressured to go back to work early?

SPEAKER_03 23:13

Yeah. So it it happens even now under the system, is you know, we hear countless stories of people going to GP appointments with their doctor and rehab providers coming along that have been appointed by the insurers and those rehab providers or case managers just pushing nominated treating doctors to change people's certification on the certificates and being, you know, really relentless in pushing for that to happen. And then nominating treating doctors, you know, making a change, and then all of a sudden they're sort of needing to go back to work or getting pushed to go back to work or threat they're you know, they're faced with the pressure of being cut off their benefits if they don't go back to work. So that sort of storm happens all the time. And I don't think it's going to go away or change necessarily.

SPEAKER_02 24:03

And how's that normally resolved, in or out of the court?

SPEAKER_03 24:06

Well, it depends. If if decisions are made off the back of that change in certification to cut off somebody's weekly benefits, then there may well be a dispute that runs through the court commission process around whether you know the work capacity decision that was made by the insurer was a viable decision and things like that. Sometimes there's not necessarily much you can do about it.

SPEAKER_02 24:29

With employer obligations and insurer dynamics, employers are now required to pay in excess equal to the first two weeks of wages. What impact will that have on employer behaviour?

SPEAKER_03 24:39

My hope is that it will incentivize employers to have safer workplaces. That's my hope. It will, you know, if there's financial ramifications, workplace injuries that are, you know, felt in the hip pocket of employers, hope maybe that will push them and hopefully that will push them to ensure that they've got, you know, safe work practices. They're not cutting corners around safety, they are looking after the psychological well-being of their workers. People shouldn't go to work and come home injured, they shouldn't go to work and not come home at all. Like I do a lot of work in representing dependents of workers that have passed away as a result of workplace accidents and injuries, and as a result of, you know, taking their own lives due to injuries. That's a big part of my practice. And there's been a spate of workplaces lately where you've had people not coming home from work, young kids, mums, dads, you know, all of that sort of thing. It's really important that employers recognize the role that they play in keeping their employees safe and sending them home each day.

SPEAKER_02 25:47

What industries are these mainly fatal accidents happening?

SPEAKER_03 25:51

Uh a lot of your sort of construction site, those types of um construction site accidents. So workplaces where you've got forklifts and sort of vehicles of some description moving around on the workplace and psychological injuries. There's, you know, people that are unfortunately finding it simply too much to deal with the psychological injuries and then what flows from that.

SPEAKER_02 26:19

With these sharing of information, what do you see? You see these are improv going to improve claims or they're gonna create new risks for workers? How's the balance going to work out?

SPEAKER_03 26:29

I don't know. I'm comfortable in saying I don't know how how it's going to work out, to be honest. I think I'll watch and see.

SPEAKER_02 26:36

And what impact will have it on insurers, do you know?

SPEAKER_03 26:39

I mean, this is a massive change for insurers just as much as it is for injured workers. You know, the operational requirements and and upskilling all of their workers on the new provisions and how they apply and who they apply to and all of that sort of thing. I think it's as big of an undertaking for them as it is for anybody else. Whether they, you know, carve out specialist areas that deal only with psychological injuries claims, um, or whether they already have that in place, not too sure, but I think it's going to be a period of change for them as well.

SPEAKER_02 27:16

And now we've got these reforms also include increased weekly payment caps. Who benefits most from this change?

SPEAKER_03 27:22

Well, for psychological injuries, nothing, it's it's only going backwards for weeklies for psychological injuries. It's not going up. What will happen for people with psychological injuries is they are going to be, unless their impairment reaches a certain threshold, and that threshold is quite high, they will be cut off at 130 weeks. Under the system now, there's an opening for people to keep receiving benefits up to five years and then beyond that as well. But now for majority of psychological injuries workers, it's going to be 130 weeks is going to be see the cutoff, and then it can go for a little bit longer. And then if it goes for a little bit longer, you're actually also getting less now in terms of a percentage of your pre-injury average weekly earnings than you were before. So the only group of people that loses or that like loses from that is the injured worker. It's the worker with the psychological injury that you know doesn't reach these ever-increasing thresholds to keep getting the benefits beyond a certain beyond that 130-week mark.

SPEAKER_02 28:25

How was the 130-week mark derived?

SPEAKER_03 28:27

It was something that was in the legislation from 2012. So that was a reform that was introduced in 2012. It basically broke the weekly entitlement period, like it broke weeklies down into entitlement periods. So, you know, there's a set of rules that apply if you're between zero and and thirteen weeks, and then there's a set of rules that apply if you're between 14 and 130 weeks, and then between 130 and 260, and then there's another lot of rules that's past 260. So it's sort of feeding off the scheme that's been in place since 2012. And 130 weeks is two and a half years, you know. I think it's focused on wanting to get people back to work and sort of marker points for when, you know, if you get don't get someone back to work by that point, are they going to go back to work? Those sorts of questions start coming into to those weeks. For the worker in the moment and in the experience. 130 weeks is just a random number that's been plucked out of the air. It doesn't match up with their experience of their injury and what they're going through. But it's in it's an important point in time for the claim.

SPEAKER_02 29:34

So when it comes to practical advice, for workers in New South Wales, what are the top three things they should understand about these reforms?

SPEAKER_03 29:42

Oh, they're so complicated. I don't I feel like to pick out three things. The first thing I would say is if you have been experiencing a psychological injury as a result of something like bullying and harassment, and you haven't lodged a claim yet, I would notify of that claim before the 30th of June, 2026. Because that's potentially going to mean that you're you're not captured by some of the new reforms. Others you like there's other ones you will be, but not all of them. So that'll be my first thing. The next thing is that not everything about these changes applies to all workers, and it also might apply at different points in time. So that probably then leads into the third thing, which is get advice. You don't like this is a complicated system. It is a technically complicated system. You don't have to go through it alone, you don't have to navigate it alone. Get a lawyer in your corner, get somebody to help you navigate through it. Because, you know, even weekly benefits alone, there's going to be, depending on what your date of injury is or date of notification of injury, there's going to be multiple different schemes or thresholds applicable for weekly benefits applying and running all at the same time. And then you've also got emergency services workers that are off on the side that aren't captured by a lot of like don't capture a lot of these changes, but then some of them they still do. So, you know, it's really, I think, important for people to get advice and get support to navigate through it because it's not an easy scheme to find your way through yourself whilst dealing with an injury at the same time.

SPEAKER_02 31:18

What are the sort of the common mistakes when workers come to you that they've made in the process that also will take effect after June 30 as well?

SPEAKER_03 31:27

I've been thinking about this in the context of bullying, and I think probably it's really important now for workers to be documenting things. So oftentimes you'll get people coming to you after bullying has been going on for a period of time, and they haven't necessarily been keeping a really accurate record of what's been happening over the years that they've been targeted by, you know, whoever it is. And that then means when they come to you down the track, you are trying to piece together what happened and they don't remember times or dates or places or who was there or what happened. And I think that is going to make a much bigger difference under this new scheme. So I think diary keeping, like keeping a record of these instances of bullying and harassment is going to be important. Um, so I'd sort of recommend for people to do that. The other thing, as well, is that you find workers don't do, or maybe it doesn't happen, is when you've got a physical injury and you are really focused on there's, you know, maybe one part of your physical injury is the most significant. Like you, you know, the pain is really bad in your shoulder and you need a surgery on your shoulder, so you, you know, everything you write down is about your shoulder. When you see your doctor, you talk about your shoulder. You've got some pain in your neck, but you don't, you know, focus on it too much because you're focused on the shoulder. And what can happen is if someone has an injury to the neck that develops down the track and they haven't, they don't have contemporaneous reporting of those problems in the related areas, then that can be a bit like an evidentiary burden or hurdle you've got to get over to try and connect that disputed body part down the track. So really making sure that if you start to develop, you know, consequential problems in other body parts, tell your doctors, create that record of contemporaneous reporting of those things so that you can have an easier time of sort of dealing with any dispute that might arise in the future if you're trying to claim for that body system or body part, and the insurer says, Well, no, hold on. This was only ever a claim about the shoulder, there was nothing about the neck. So that's something that will often happen, and I think is sort of something that people can try and keep a track of and make sure they're doing to help themselves in the long run.

SPEAKER_02 33:51

And looking from the others' perspective, what should employees do to stay compliant?

SPEAKER_03 33:56

Like they really do need to be prepared for these changes and be and understand what their part to play is. I don't think it's a barrier head in the sand situation for employers. You know, they've got to be proactive as soon as they're getting notifications of injuries to go to their insurer and let their insurer know and sort of follow those processes to the T so that they're not captured by any delay in determining things which can then have flow and effects for them.

SPEAKER_02 34:25

So looking ahead, do you think these reforms will achieve their intended outcomes?

SPEAKER_03 34:29

What was their intended outcome? Their intended outcome to do I think in the long run you will see a reduction in psychological injuries claims? Yes. I think that's what you'll see in the long run.

SPEAKER_02 34:40

Is that good?

SPEAKER_03 34:41

It depends whose perspective you're looking at it from, perhaps. I think we are going to have practically people pushed off this scheme and looking for support on other schemes, you know, Centrelink, NDIS. I think that's going to happen. And how well those schemes can cope with that remains to be seen, I think.

SPEAKER_02 35:03

Do you think that's an unintended consequence? People going to other schemes?

SPEAKER_03 35:06

Unintended or intended? I don't. I think that's what will happen.

SPEAKER_02 35:11

If you could change one aspect of the new legislation, what would you change?

SPEAKER_03 35:15

Uh I couldn't narrow it down to one. I could only pick I could pick two. So I would um not have the WPI threshold to pursue a damages claim for psychological injuries raised as high as it is. I think that is significantly problematic. If someone is injured because their employer was negligent, they should have recourse to be compensated for that without such a high bar to get over in the first place. So that would be the main thing. And then I think the single assessment process I think is quite problematic. So I would probably remove that and go back to the process of you know, you get the opportunity to get your evidence, they get the opportunity to get their evidence. You can either agree or it gets resolved by a third party. That would be something that I would have kept in if I could only pick two things.

SPEAKER_02 36:08

Final question: where do you see New South Wales compensation, workers' compensation heading over the next five years?

SPEAKER_03 36:16

I think it's going to, I mean, it's it it's there's always going to be a scheme and a need for a scheme and a need for support. I think the the flow on in the next three to five years is it's just going to become narrower and narrower, the people and the the types of injuries that can be supported and covered by the scheme. I think it's really going to have that impact in the long run. It's not going anywhere, but there's going to be a lot less available for people for support.

SPEAKER_02 36:46

Which is going to have a knock-on effect into the community, isn't it? Inevitably.

SPEAKER_03 36:51

You know, the the flow-on effect that an injury has to a worker, but then to his family, his immediate family, his wider family, like his or her, like it's has a huge social impact, which is why, you know, prevention of injuries is a is an important theme. But how these changes achieve a prevention of injuries, I don't see that. So I think there needs to be some real focus on that to counterbalance what's going on at the other end of the spectrum when people have the injuries and and you know these changes coming in force to get them off it sooner.

SPEAKER_02 37:26

Sarah Hunt, thank you for joining the Ruminants Legal Podcast Series. Appreciate it.

SPEAKER_03 37:31

No problems, thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_00 37:37

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