News that Kellie Sloane has inaugurated her leadership of the NSW Liberal party with a stunning capitulation to the Labor party's barbaric cuts to workers compensation entitlements for seriously psychologically injured workers has been met with dismay and outrage.
The Liberal party has teamed up with the Labor Party and Alex Greenwich to callously cut away medical and financial support for workers who have been so seriously psychologically injured at work that they are unable to return to work.
The parliament has received evidence that there are no workers with a psychological injury with a WPI over 21% that has a current capacity to work, as determined by medical and legal experts. This means that the only people that are receiving long term support are the people who genuinely need it. Every single stakeholder, business and charities included, have uniformly said they do not support changes that would cut off support from genuinely injured workers. Any increase to the WPI threshold would be targeted solely and specifically at that cohort of workers.
As stated by Abigail Boyd, Greens NSW Spokesperson for Treasury and Work Health and Safety:
"This is not a compromise, it's a capitulation. The Liberal Party's failure to stand against the government's morally vacuous plan to strip away the rights of the most seriously psychologically injured workers marks an end to one of the most shameful chapters in NSW legislative history.
"Sloane, alongside lower house independents led by Alex Greenwich, have astonishingly worked with the government to take a sledgehammer to the rights of some of the most vulnerable people in our state, and people whom they claim to represent and care for. It's a stunning failure of moral leadership and integrity.
"This debate has been one laden with misinformation and political spin by a Labor government that has turned its back on one of its central tenets as a party borne out of the organised labour movement.
"If you stand for nothing, you'll fall for anything. This has been borne out in this shameful deal that has been stitched up between the major parties and the compliant lower house independents today.
"I'm proud that the Greens are the only ones in the NSW Parliament to be bound by principles and will always do the right thing, not what is politically expedient.
"This backdown by the Liberal party and complicity by independents sends a clear signal to the Labor party that they can just bulldoze any morally unconscionable legislation through parliament. They have proven themselves to be irrelevant and inept leaders.
"It's a shocking start for the new leader of the Liberal party to inaugurate her leadership with a stunning capitulation on something of such significance.
"I'm proud the Greens have been central to leading the opposition to this cruel and dangerous assault on the rights of injured people. We won't stop fighting for what is just, right, and fair."
