Working Safely
Health & Safety and Workers’ Compensation
Queenslanders expect and deserve the highest standards of occupational health and safety, as well as proper compensation for those injured in the course of their work.
Our standards must reflect the complexity and dangers of many Queensland workplaces, as well as maintaining an adequate workers’ compensation scheme.
Valuing fairness at work
Properly valuing the labour and productivity of workers to ensure fairness at work is a central principle of this Charter. It must also be a critical priority for any future government through:
Implementing and enforcing the highest standards of occupational health and safety by:
- Actively involving unions in negotiating health and safety laws
- Increasing the staffing of the “Injury Prevention and Management” program to assist workers’ compensation premium capped employers
- Increasing fines and penalties for employers who repeatedly infringe health and safety laws.
Maintaining and improving the highest possible standards of workers’ compensation for injured workers by:
- Ensuring that benefits address the lost income of injured workers
- Ensuring that rehabilitation is timely, has a return-to-work focus and is done in consultation with the injured worker, their doctor and the employer
- Actively involving unions in negotiating workers’ compensation laws at both state and federal levels
- Ensuring workers have access to common law without barriers
- Committing to maintaining or increasing the financial reserves of WorkCover to ensure compensation claims are adequately funded.