
Issue No 100		29 June 2001

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Media

Privatisation Opens New WorkCover Front

Unions have renewed pressure on NSW Industrial Relations Minister John Della Bosca to repeal a law that gives him the power to privatise the WorkCover scheme at will.

While Della Bosca denied newspaper reports this week that he is considering the move, he is still refusing to act to rule out the option by taking the power off the statute books.

But fears are growing that the current round of cost-cutting is nothing more than the preparation for the sell-off of the scheme to private insurers.

The privatisation of underwriting was approved in legislation in 1998, but delayed indefinitely after pressure from unions and some employer groups.

It is also understood that the insurance industry, at the time, believed the scheme was too generous to injured workers to generate the sort of profits their shareholders demand.

But following the collapse of HIH, trade unions have called for the legislation allowing the Minister to privatize the scheme to be totally repealed.

Labor Council secretary John Robertson says that, despite Della's Bosca's carefully framed denial, suspicions would remain until the power was taken out of the law.

Bring Back Government Insurer

Meanwhile, the Public Service Association's Maurie O'Sullivan has gone further, calling on Treasurer Michael Egan to bring back a government-owned insurance office.

"No doubt the spin-doctors who fought so strongly over the years against regulation of the insurance industry will beat their breasts and will thump their craws in disbelief and horror at such a suggestion," O'Sullivan says.

"But I suggest very strongly to you that when the NSW Government ran the GIO there was a damn sight more credibility about that office than there is today about the entire insurance industry."

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Issue 100 contents

Interview: Baptism of Fire
It�s been a rugged few weeks for Labor Council�s new honcho. But John Robertson accepts it comes with the territory.

Politics: Seven Days that Shook Our World
Chris Christolodulou surveys the wreckage from a week when the political and industrial wings of the labour movement collided.

History: History Sometimes Repeat
This is not the first Labor government to attack workers compensation entitlements. Some believe the Unsworth Government�s 1987 reforms were the beginning of the end for that administration.

Technology: Unions Online: Where To Now?
Social Change Online's Mark McGrath goes looking for what's on the virtual horizon for the union movement.

Media: The Printed Word Revisited
Rowan Cahill looks at the resurgence of the workers press and the lessons for unions in better communicating with their members.

Unions: Time For Second Gear
The trends are in the right direction but unions are still drinking small beer in the IT world and need to allocate more resources to communications generally, argues Noel Hester.

Satire: Texan Governor Faces Execution
The governor of Texas has been sentenced to death row after a jury found him guilty of killing hundreds of people.

Review: The Insider
Neale Towart looks at a literary anti-hero who brings the factional machinations and double-deals of the ALP machine out of the back rooms and into the light.

» Picket MPs Face More WorkCover Heat

» Della Tries a Henry VIII

» Privatisation Opens New WorkCover Front

» The Crucifixion and Resurrection of Virtual Democracy

» Bank Staff Forced to Flog Insurance

» Email Surveillance Report Gathers Dust

» Fifty Years On, Women Still Short-Changed

» Firefighters Withdraw Strike Threat

» Telstra�s Sells Off Skills Base

» BHP - Billiton Faces $1.8 Billion OHS Claim

» Activist Notebook

» STOP PRESS: Quite Frankly, Reith Goes!