NSW’s Workers’ Compensation Bill Fails — But It’s Only the Tip of a National Iceberg

When the NSW Government’s workers’ compensation bill collapsed in Parliament this week, many celebrated. But anyone who has lived inside these systems knows the truth:

The bill’s failure to achieve it's total objective of decimating psychological injured workers' within the scheme is not the victory. The real story is the iceberg beneath it.

Because the problem isn’t one bad bill. It’s the entire dated philosophy of workers’ compensation in Australia, a philosophy built for an economy, a workforce, and a society that no longer exists.

And it’s hurting people. Every single day.

Before the Vote: What Industry Already Knew

In the lead-up to the vote, which ultimately failed to vote for the increase in the Whole Person Impairment Threshold to 31%, was proposed by the in the early hours of 14 November 2025, Insurance News reported that Premier Chris Minns’ government was weighing a compromise proposal from independent MP Alex Greenwich. That compromise would have:

• staged the increase to the psychological injury threshold

• required insurers to follow more procedural steps before disputing a claim

• tasked the Chief Psychiatrist with modernising psychological impairment measurement

Industry leaders warned this wouldn’t fix the deeper problem.

Even before the parliamentary drama, the cracks were obvious.

But what happened next would shake the entire country.

A Turning Point: Taylor Martin’s Stand — and the Conversation That Changed Everything

The dramatic collapse of the NSW bill turned on a single moment.

As reported by The Sydney Morning Herald, independent MP Taylor Martin who had taken carriage of the compromise amendments stood in Parliament and declared:

His withdrawal of support detonated the government’s final pathway to raising the psychological injury threshold to 31%.

But beyond the chamber, a human story shaped that shift.

In our discussion with Taylor Martin after the vote, a very tired (it was a Marathon 12 hour sitting) Martin made it clear that a pivotal moment was his conversation earlier this week with former iCare whistleblower Chris McCann, a decorated former police detective and injured worker living with a serious psychological injury.

After hearing McCann’s lived-experience of trauma inside the system, and what he has endured, Martin said he understood the real-world consequences of what raising the threshold would do and could not live with himself to vote for the increase of WIP threshold to 31%.

He challenged the government directly publicly and privately calling out their strategy of relying on others to carry the political burden for cuts they did not want to own.

Martin’s stand did more than collapse the vote. It tipped the workers’ compensation crisis into the lounge rooms of Australia.

For the first time, mums and dads, brothers and sisters, employers and frontline workers saw what injured workers have known for years:

This system is not about health. It is about money, for government, for budgets, and for political optics.

We owe Martin a huge gratitude for his public service to what is right.

And now that truth is out. Once seen, it cannot be unseen.

The Real Issue Isn’t Who Can Enter the System.

It’s What Happens Once They Do.

The public debate keeps circling the wrong question: How many people should be allowed to claim?

But the real, unanswered question — the one governments refuse to touch — is:

What happens to a human being once they’re in the system?

Because here is the truth:

Workers’ compensation has drifted so far from its founding social purpose that it no longer resembles its original intent, a safety net for workers injured serving the economy.

Instead, it has become a risk-management mechanism for governments and insurers.

And when you redesign safety nets to protect budgets instead of people, people get hurt.

A National System Built on Fragmentation and Inequality

Australia does not have “a” workers’ compensation system. It has 11 disconnected jurisdictions, each with their own rules, benefits, entitlements and thresholds.

This creates:

• different outcomes for the same injury depending on the state

• inconsistent obligations for national employers

• a postcode lottery for injured workers

• ballooning legal and administrative costs

• barriers to effective prevention, care and return-to-work

This is not equity. It’s not efficiency. And it’s certainly not care.

Victoria: When Injured Workers Said They Were Treated Like Criminals

If anyone thinks NSW is an outlier, they haven’t read what happened in Victoria.

The Victorian Ombudsman’s 2019 investigation into WorkSafe uncovered a system where complex claims were routinely terminated in “wholly unreasonable circumstances.” Injured workers repeatedly reported feeling treated like criminals, interrogated and disbelieved rather than supported. One claims officer told investigators the quiet truth:

This wasn’t just poor practice. It was culture — a culture built on suspicion, cost-cutting and the belief that psychological injury is a budget threat, not a human wound.

That culture was reaffirmed in 2022 by the independent Rozen Review, which found hostility and harm baked into parts of the system. And again in 2025, when the Independent Review of the Modernisation of the WorkCover Scheme confirmed the system had failed to keep pace with the rise in psychological injuries. Across multiple investigations, one message was consistent:

In Victoria, people were harmed not only by their injuries — but by the system meant to heal them.

The Comcare Review: Completed, But Hidden

At the federal level, the sixth review of the Comcare scheme — an independent review of the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act has now been completed and handed to government.

But as of November 2025, it has not been publicly released.

That silence matters.

It suggests one of two things:

1. The findings are politically uncomfortable, or

2. The government is not ready to engage with the systemic overhaul required.

Either way, Australia faces a familiar pattern:

Commissions, reviews, inquiries…but never transformation.

The Algorithm in the Room: Transparency Can No Longer Be Optional

Modern workers’ compensation systems quietly rely on complex algorithms, digital triage tools and automated decision supports.

Yet:

• workers cannot see what’s being assessed

• doctors cannot interrogate the rules behind decisions

• advocates cannot audit digital bias

• governments do not publish assumptions or accuracy

• insurers hide behind “the guidelines” rather than explain them

This is the next frontier of reform. And it cannot be ignored.

If algorithmic tools determine whether an injured worker receives care, support or acknowledgement, those tools must be transparent, auditable and contestable.

No more black boxes. No more digital gatekeeping. No more silent harm.

The Bill Failed — But Australia’s System Fails Every Day

The collapse of NSW’s psychological injury bill is not the conclusion of anything. It is the beginning of a reckoning. And in politics a day is a long time, anything could still happen...

However, a system that needs bills like this to survive is a system in crisis in attitudes from those operating it within. A system that fears scrutiny is a system that knows it is failing. A system that harms the very people it claims to protect is a system that has forgotten why it exists. And a system that wants to vote in Parliament to restrict psychological injuries to such a point that it is known people have died by suicide is morally bankrupt.

This is not a state problem. This is a national emergency disguised as administrative complexity.

What Australia Needs Now

1. A modern philosophy of workers’ compensation

One grounded in dignity, human rights and recovery — not cost containment.

2. Protections for people once they enter the system

Because the greatest harm occurs after injury, inside the machinery of claims management.

3. A national framework with minimum standards of care

Not 11 different realities.Not 11 thresholds of suffering.

4. Full transparency of algorithms shaping decisions

You cannot trust what you cannot see.

5. A trauma-informed model that treats psychological injury as real

Not suspicious.Not expendable.

The Iceberg Is Bigger Than NSW

What happens moving forward in NSW is still to be seen over the coming days and months. The NSW bill was a symptom. The Comcare Review’s secrecy is another. Victoria’s findings are another.

The deeper truth is clear:

Australia’s workers’ compensation systems were built for a different century. Injured workers are paying the price for our refusal to modernise with care and compassion for 'man down'. The stigma driven mental health narrative must stop.

Proper reform is no longer optional. Lives depend on it.

Australia, we can do better.