Stand up for injured workers
Your urgent action is needed to make Peter Malinauskas and his Labor Government withdraw their legislation changing the Return to Work Act (To Overturn the Summerfield Decision) that will cut severely injured workers off of the important medical care they need and potentially send them into poverty.
The decision by the Government to pursue these changes isn’t just an attack on working South Australians. It attacks our most severely injured. It attacks workers who without adequate support could face a life of poverty.
NEED TO KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON?
- Here’s a quick explainer, you can print this and share it with your workmates!
- Here’s the letter we sent to the Premier
We’re asking for workers like you to email Labor Party members of the SA Parliament to let them know that this is just not acceptable. Complete the form and send an email to let Labor Government MPs know just how important this is to workers.
WHAT WE’RE CALLING FOR:
Decisions should not be made behind closed doors by an unelected and unrepresentative board.
We’re calling for open consultation with everyone affected by the system.
It’s unacceptable for the government to force injured workers into poverty to cover RTWSA’s budgetary gaps.
Injured workers shouldn’t have to suffer in poverty because of hypothetical numbers that haven’t been double-checked.
We’re calling for an independent actuarial review of RTWSA’s arguments about any potential liability after they are now forced to actually recognise the legislation as it was intended.
We need a full review of the Return to Work system, including a review of the internal culture, practices, and procedures of RTWSA The fact that the board is now claiming that its failure to achieve its desired outcome in it’s protracted litigation has somehow created an unfunded liability issue demonstrates that the board has fundamentally mismanaged the scheme.
THE RETURN TO WORK BOARD
The Return to Work Board wasted countless years and taxpayer dollars on protracted litigation that was always doomed to fail.
Year after year they reported ‘operating profits’ because they fudged the numbers by not including the full liability.
Now, they’re trying to claim that the bill as originally written, (but never accounted for) has somehow created an unfunded liability issue, this only demonstrates that the board has fundamentally mismanaged the scheme.
Instead of taking the easy way out by bailing these bureaucrats out and putting injured workers into poverty, why isn’t the Government holding them to account?
WHY IS LABOR DOING THIS?
The Australian Labor Party was built of the union movement, for the union movement.
What sets Labor apart are the founding values that define it – an unwavering commitment to fight for dignity in work and in life.
The introduction of the Return to Work Bill is not only a betrayal of firm commitments by the Parliamentary Labor Party to the workers of South Australia, it is an attack on the core values of Labor.
It flies in the face of the Labor party platform, party rules and must be withdrawn.
South Australian workers deserve better than this.
