The State Insurance Regulatory Authority (SIRA) has quietly commissioned research into the identification of suicidal risk, and to enhance suicide prevention and postvention, in the workers compensation system.
The need for a targeted focus on suicide in the NSW workers compensation system comes in the wake of the NSW Labor government's planned legislation that would raise barriers for entry into workers compensation for psychological injuries, as well as dramatically curtail access to ongoing critical assistance by way of medical treatments and weekly wage replacement for psychologically injured workers. Under the government's proposed reforms, over 99% of all psychologically injured workers would have their access to assistance cut in half, to terminate after two and a half years.
The last time entitlements were curtailed through legislation such as this, we saw in the first year of effect 375 injured workers being identified as vulnerable to self harm, 13 instances of confirmed self-harm, and six deaths of workers on workers compensation being referred to the coroner. By 2020, when the majority of workers impacted by the changes were starting to feel its effect, there were 115 incidents of self-harm.
In the 2024 calendar year, 1,025 injured workers had their weekly payments terminated, and 2,013 injured workers had their medical entitlements terminated, due to the arbitrarily imposed legislative timeline. From 2020 to May 2024, SIRA has recorded 59 instances of suicides by injured workers receiving workers compensation support. icare recorded a further 33 attempted suicides during this period, and 170 incidents of self-harm for NSW government workers on workers compensation. SIRA has confirmed that incidence of suicide remains under-reported.
In response to questioning over the government's planned legislation to cut entitlements further for psychologically injuried workers in particular, icare confirmed they had done no modelling or calculations as to the number of suicides or self-harm incidents that might result from the proposed legislation. 2 months after that evidence was given to parliament, SIRA commissioned new research into suicide in the workers compensation scheme, due to report back mid-next year - just before the predictable wave of self-harm incidents wouldlikely occur if the government's proposed cuts to support for psychologically injured workers are allowed to pass.
Despite calls from SIRA themselves to reform the workers compensation scheme to become 'person-centred', the research Statement of Work expressly prohibits researchers speaking to anyone 'who has lived experience of an attempted or actual suicide'.
As stated by Greens NSW MP, Abigail Boyd, Chair of the Public Accountability and Works Committee, and Greens NSW spokesperson for Work Health and Safety:
"The NSW Labor Government's proposed cuts to workers compensation entitlements for workers with serious psychological injuries will have genuinely devastating effects on thousands of injured workers across this state.
"We saw the heartbreaking and life-shattering impacts last time cuts such as these were introduced. These cuts are even more targeted towards people who are already more vulnerable by the nature of their injury, and so the impact can be expected to be even more acute and devastating.
"I cannot emphasise enough how dangerous this government's proposed cuts will be, ripping away support from those who need it the most.
"The government and business lobby are desperate to cut off workers who have been injured as a result of their work just to save a few dollars in the short-term, rather than actually doing the hard work of reforming a system in which poor claims management, administrative inefficiencies and faulty premium calculation methodologies are driving bad outcomes for injured workers and employers alike.
"This government is proposing the blunt and lazy option of eliminating nearly an entire class of injured workers from support when they need it the most. The government's plan to cut costs will leave injured workers and their families paying the price."
