Monday Muses -day off edition

Thank you to everyone from across the National and International workers compensation industry who contacted me after I posted Monday Muses last week. It was reassuring to know that myself and Craig’s Table are held in such high esteem. I was more than Blessed to receive a phone call from Texas.

I have long spoken about the need to have the injured worker community recognised as a stand-alone section of the Australia population so that real work can be put in place to relieve the concerns that come to Craig’s Table week in week out. So much money is being spent on crisis response for all manner of societal concerns that are found in every aspect of Australia community. Yet when I speak with the researchers and the community leaders I still get the same blank look when I explain just how large the injured worker community is and how far too many times the collapse of the family unit is due to the complications from the workers compensation component. I had a very interesting discussion over this past weekend with a person who simply did not know that families of injured workers can not access a CentreLink Healthcare card. He was even more surprised that no research has been done into the levels of real poverty within the injured worker community.

As good as the Rozen Review is, the concerns from the injured worker community did not include the pressures involved that form the basis of consider attempted or completed self-harm. Not the challenges of needing to pay the rent/mortgage and put food on the table and pay school fees or for growing children’s shoes. The current iteration of workers compensation has been in Australia since the late 1980’s, I have been talking about the social challenges for a very long time, yet I am still unable to gain traction because it seems the urban myth that the workers compensation process does not disadvantage anyone. (side note, rightly so people are concerned on females retiring on less superannuation at the end of their working lives, yet there is no such concern in regards to the injured worker community having superannuation payments stopped because of a workplace injury even though there is more than ample evidence the lack of superannuation for the injured worker community was raised in the 1994 Industry Commission Review)(it seems that the required between the various National State and Territory ministers discussion to enact the payments never started)

Bob’s Cluttered Desk

Over many years I have been involved with writing many different outlines for how workers compensation is a toolbox to enable the injured worker community. A discussion with The Marksman and others have convinced me it is time to upgrade the information that is in place adding a section to guide just how to focus on outcomes rather than allow/tolerate stagnation. It is interesting the number of people who simply do not know that they have the right and the responsibility to question the decisions made by the professional strangers within their workers compensation claim. It still remains strange to me that real engagement and real outcomes are not the preferred process. It truly is far better to prevent a crisis than to resolve the issues that Craig’s Table hears about constantly.

Time for me to head to the airport (yes I sunk out of Parramatta for the weekend) if I have left anything out I will add it in later ??To be honest this was the first non-Craig’s Table trip I have taken since the start of 2020.?

I will put the other links in when I get back to Parramatta later tonight.

Yours in service

Rosemary