It is with deep respect that I rise to speak in support of the Workplace Injury Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill 2025, because this bill is not just about legislative amendments, it is about people. It is about how we treat people when their world is turned upside down, when their lives change in an instant. No-one expects that an ordinary work day will change everything. No-one plans to get injured at work. You wake up maybe a little tired or maybe thinking ahead to the school pick-up or what is on for dinner, but you make your morning coffee, kiss your kids, partner or pet goodbye and head out the door. You are not thinking about whether you will come home safely, because as governments and workplaces we have rightly put in place measures to prevent accidents or negligence occurring in the first place.
We actively work to create safe workplaces, and we have put worker safety at the core of our laws. But sometimes things do go horribly wrong, and when they do, the impact can be immediate and can echo for a lifetime. When that happens, the question we must ask is: what happens next? The answer to that is that we stand with those workers, we stand with their families and we back a system that puts people, not paperwork and not profit, at its heart. That is what Labor governments do. We do not walk past injustice. We do not look away from hard truths. We stop, we listen and we act. Labor has always stood with workers. It was the Cain Labor government in 1985 that laid the foundations of the modern safety and compensation scheme. That reform was more than just a policy shift; it was a statement of principle. It was a recognition that safety at work is a fundamental right. We have built on that legacy ever since. In 2019 we introduced landmark workplace manslaughter laws to ensure that employers who put profit over lives are held to account.
At that time and in debating that remarkable piece of legislation I spoke in this Parliament about my uncle George Fasolis who died on the Kingfish B oil rig in Bass Strait and the devastating impact that had on our whole family but especially on my Auntie Koula and their young sons Alex and Charlie. I spoke about how in the aftermath of that tragedy there was virtually no support for my aunty and cousins and how my father had the solemn task of driving to Glenroy High to take Alex out of year 7 and to Jacana Primary to take Charlie out of class and to tell them that they had lost their dad. This was in 1982. There was no inquiry. There were no social workers. No-one from the company extended any empathy or support. There was never any healing from that irrevocable loss. Even though I was not yet born, that tragedy and that impact have been a part of my consciousness for as long as I can remember, woven through the experiences of my dad, my auntie and my cousins. We do not always talk about that toll, the invisible weight of a workplace death or injury, and how it can utterly shatter families and how that pain lingers.
I am proud our Labor government have consistently brought these issues into the forefront of our reform agenda. In 2020 we made provisional mental health payments a reality, because we knew that mental injury is just as real and just as painful as physical harm. In 2021 we strengthened protections for workers exposed to deadly silica dust, and we strengthened access to compensation for firefighters and their families. Now in 2025 we take the next step forward, refining a system shaped by the stories of those who have lived through it, backing in the voices of workers and their families.
I would like to particularly acknowledge the members of the Workplace Incidents Consultative Committee, some of which joined us in the gallery earlier today to listen to the debate. This committee has been instrumental in contributing to these reforms to support injured workers and families who have lost a loved one from a workplace death. These are people with lived experiences – people who have somehow in their strength and resolve turned their grief into action to try to improve what happens when the worst happens. Because when someone is hurt at work, they should not have to fight to be believed. They should not feel like a number in a pile of files. They deserve to be met with a system that wraps around them with care, with dignity and with real support.
This bill responds to the findings of the Rozen review, a review that did not mince words. It found systemic failures in how complex claims were mishandled, stories ignored, medical evidence cherrypicked, people harmed not just by the original injury but by the very system meant to help them heal. But perhaps even more devastating was it showed how families and injured workers often felt shut out. People in crisis, grieving, injured, afraid were not just left in pain, they were left in silence, and in that silence uncertainty becomes unbearable. In my electorate of Northcote from time to time we have the opportunity to speak with and try to assist residents who have experienced workplace injuries. One man we met, Terry, told us about his experience with hand-arm vibration syndrome, a condition from years of heavy, repetitive tool use. His hands constantly tingle and go numb. It means he can barely sleep. He finds it hard to play with his grandchildren, to write birthday cards, to steady the cup of coffee he holds each morning. But worse still, he had to battle for years to have the cause of his injury recognised. He told us that the pain was not just in in his arms but in how invisible he felt. This bill says very clearly: your experience matters. Your voice matters. You are seen, you are heard, and we will build a system that reflects that.
One of the most important reforms in this bill is the Code of Claimants’ Rights. It outlines the basic expectations of how injured workers and their families should be treated – with clarity, with compassion, with respect – because dignity should be built into every step of the process. We are ensuring that return-to-work coordinators, so often the bridge between injury and recovery, are properly trained and resourced and supported by their employers. This matters because the role of a coordinator can be make-or-break for someone trying to rebuild their life after an injury. We know that the longer a person is off work, the harder it is to return, and too often employers have treated this role as a box tick. That ends here. We are embedding lived experience into the very structure of WorkSafe itself. WorkCover and OH&S advisory committees will now include people who have been directly impacted by workplace injury and death, because people closest to the pain have the clearest insight into how to make things better, and we are requiring statutory five-year reviews of the scheme to ensure this system never falls into complacency, because reform should not be reactive, it should be proactive, continuous and transparent.
The bill also delivers significant improvements to the way we support families after a workplace fatality, because no family should ever feel abandoned in their grief. We are increasing the weekly pension for dependent children, something that would have meant a great deal to my cousins back in 1982 when they lost their father. We are ensuring that children with disabilities are supported not just to 16 but through to 25. We are introducing grief and loss payments for close family members, not because grief has a price but because it deserves recognition for families experiencing the unimaginable. Support will now include extended counselling services and doubling provisional pension payments for partners from 12 to 26 weeks. We are also closing longstanding gaps. Families who previously were not recognised under the law – siblings, parents, carers who depended on a worker’s income – will now be eligible for lump-sum economic loss payments. We are also building systems that help people rebuild their lives. Return to Work Victoria is a dedicated agency focused on healing, support and pathways forward, whether that is connecting someone with mental health care, training or new employment opportunities. It is about recognising that dignity does not stop with compensation. It includes the right to rebuild your life. These are not small changes – they are real, human reforms that shift the culture of a system towards care, compassion and practical support. Let us be clear: this side of the house is proud to lead that work and proud to stand with workers, with families and with those who have fought for a better way.
Before I close I want to again acknowledge the extraordinary work of the Workplace Incidents Consultative Committee – their insight, their heartbreak and their clarity have helped shape this reform. This bill carries their fingerprints. Dignity is not a luxury – it is a right, and those on this side of the house will always uphold that right. This is our commitment, this is what we believe in and this is why I commend the bill to the house.
