Today in Parliament, Abigail contributed to a debate, supporting the Workers Compensation Legislation Amendment (Firefighters) Bill 2025, backing long-overdue presumptive protections for firefighters while criticising the Government’s restrictive approach, financial excuses and failure to enact broader workers compensation and emergency services levy reform.

Abigail said:

I speak in debate on the Workers Compensation Legislation Amendment (Firefighters) Bill 2025 as The Greens spokesperson for industrial relations and work health and safety. The Greens support this long‑overdue piece of legislation, which is also supported by the Fire Brigade Employees Union [FBEU] and welcomed by the Rural Fire Service Association. I acknowledge the relentless campaign by the FBEU for this commonsense and compassionate update to our laws. The bill recognises not only the obvious risks to firefighters' immediate safety when facing down fires and other disasters but also the long‑term health impacts that exposure can have.

The key reason we need these laws of presumption is that they recognise just how brutal and gruelling the workers compensation claims process can be. There is a need for a positive presumption because the way injured workers are treated by insurers and employers is otherwise a negative presumption. It should not have to be this way and, when we pass positive presumption laws like this, it is an acknowledgment of the broken and adversarial system we accept for other injured workers. I will not traverse all of the content I covered in my previous contribution to debate on the Opposition's bill, for which we were grateful. We are very eager for this legislation to pass swiftly, and we welcome the Government giving the bill a higher level of priority in today's schedule than it did earlier this week.

This House has already made very clear that this legislation is a priority, and it is good that this Government is also finally considering it a priority. Firefighters have waited long enough. I have no doubt my colleague Dr Amanda Cohn will give us the benefit of her experience both as a doctor and an emergency services volunteer to give more detail about what the bill means from a medical perspective and why it is so necessary. I will focus my contribution on where the bill diverges from the Opposition bill that was passed by this Chamber not long ago—that is, the additional requirements for volunteer firefighters to be eligible for the presumption for the new cancers. The Government has said that these additional requirements will target the presumption to volunteers who have a broadly comparable level of exposure to occupational hazards as professional firefighters, with these requirements subject to review by an advisory panel.

According to the statement of public interest attached to the bill, the additional requirements are proposed for volunteer firefighters in acknowledgment of the fact that the cost of liabilities for presumptive firefighter cancers are substantially borne by insurers and policyholders via the emergency services levy and local councils due to the statutory funding arrangements for the emergency services agencies. The Treasurer announced in November 2023 that the Government would overhaul the funding model for the emergency services levy, and a consultation paper released in April last year discussed replacing the insurance-based system with a broader levy across property owners. In this year's budget, the Government has raised its forecast for emergency services levy collections. The budget predicted revenue from insurer levy and council contributions is forecast to increase by $324.7 million over the four years to 2028-29 compared with the 2024-25 half-yearly review figures.

The Treasurer's hands are all over the bill. Once again, he has failed to do the hard work of reform, allowing costs to inflate. To constrain spending, he is restricting access to workers compensation for injured workers. Shame on him. This is a really important point because we hear the Government crowing and using all sorts of horrific lies and misinformation to try to justify pushing through its incredibly cruel workers compensation reforms. It goes on and on about the pressure on business. I could talk to members for hours about how there is no financial crisis in icare or how the reforms that the Government is pushing through will not lower pressure on premiums.

But let us talk about the other pressure on business that the Treasurer seems to have just forgotten about: the at‑times 24 per cent increase in business insurance. Business owners are paying thousands in insurance bills because of the inefficient emergency services levy that the Treasurer seems to have forgotten about in the scramble to get the workers compensation reforms over the line using all sorts of disgusting tips and tricks for pushing through bills that should never be considered. But I digress—only to  point out that in this case we are also apparently taking the really lazy "let's just cut through this thing and not give as much to these deserving firefighters" approach.

Let us come back to the core of workers compensation. Firefighters are being injured at work. The Government is saying, "Let us not make it any easier for them to get the help they need." Even though we are talking about relatively small amounts of money, the Treasurer is not going to reform the emergency services levy anytime soon. Instead, he is choosing to constrain and restrict access to workers compensation for injured workers. I ask the State to wake up and recognise that the Treasurer is just not very good at his job. The other thing about the bill is that it is not intended to be retrospective. That is cruel and unreasonable—particularly in the face of the Government's own delays on this important reform. I understand the Government may support amendments to make it retrospective in some regard, and we will support those amendments.

I also understand that there has been a decision to not include oesophageal cancers in the bill. That was going to cost around $4 million. Again, we are seeing an incredibly miserly approach to running the finances of the State. Sure, the Government can save a whole lot of money by cutting off the very people it was elected to support. That is a very easy way to balance the books. I call on the Government to finally start doing the hard work of reform—not cuts—and do the job properly. We are pleased that this particular bill has got through, even though it is not as good as what the Opposition proposed. I am sure that the union movement will be pleased that its voice has been heard—even if only partially—on one of these critical reforms.

Read the debate in Hansard here.

20 November 2025