Today in Parliament, Abigail passed a motion condemning the Treasurer’s fearmongering and misuse of data to justify a harsh and unnecessary workers compensation bill, highlighting that our inquiry into it exposed misleading financial claims about icare and confirmed that the scheme’s finances have actually improved.

Abigail said:

I move:

(1) That this House notes that:

• • on 17 June 2025 the Treasurer, the Hon. Daniel Mookhey, MLC, gave evidence to the Public Accountability and Works Committee inquiry into the Workers Compensation Legislation Amendment Bill 2025, in which he said about the Nominal Insurer's finances, "I can report that icare has advised me that the scheme deficit is expected to rise from $4.9 billion at 31 December 2024 to nearly $6 billion in the absence of reform by 1 July"; and
  • on 13 October 2025, The Daily Telegraph reported data not yet publicly released but provided to them by the Government that based on its June valuation the Nominal Insurer deficit has a reported $5.4 billion deficit, that is, a $600 million lower deficit than that predicted by the Treasurer in June 2025 to justify the proposed cuts.

(2) That this House further notes that:

• • according to the Government's own data, the scheme financial position is around half a billion dollars better off than predicted when the Government embarked on its proposed cuts to workers compensation entitlements; and
  • in response to question on notice No. 4129, icare confirmed it is expecting a $4.5 billion claims valuation benefit to the scheme over the next 10 years, however due to actuarial valuation rules that assumption is not incorporated into the scheme's liability estimates and, during budget estimates on 1 September 2025, icare CEO Geniere Aplin and icare Workers Compensation Group Executive Tony Wessling confirmed that this remained icare's assumed impact and reconfirmed it had not been incorporated into the scheme valuation.

(3) That this House calls on the Government to cease providing misleadingly worded statements to the media that imply a worsening financial outlook for icare when the Treasurer's own statements indicate the opposite.

Back in May when we referred the Government's proposed workers compensation reforms to inquiry, I spoke about the profound harm that the Government's bill would have on injured workers in the State. Noting that profound harm, I asked members to think very carefully about whether that harm was justified in the circumstances. For the reforms to be justified, we would need to satisfy ourselves that, firstly, the New South Wales Government compensation scheme was in such dire financial straits that we had no choice but to undertake such radical cuts to workers' entitlements; and, secondly, that if we were so satisfied, that the reforms are the fairest and most effective way of stabilising that financial position. If we are not satisfied of those matters, then we cannot in good conscience vote through a bill that would have such a devastating impact on workers in this State.

Through the Public Accountability and Works Committee inquiry that I have been proud to chair into the Government's proposed bills, we have established a number of matters. Above all, and thanks to the incredible testimony of so many who would be directly impacted, we have established that the harm and damage that would be wrought upon injured workers if we allow the workers compensation bill to go through would be devastating—as bad, or even worse, than I imagined when I gave that speech five months ago. As I made clear then, deciding whether to pass the bill is literally a matter of life or death. We have also clearly established in our inquiry that the financial case for these reforms has not been made out.

As suspected, the Government has been putting forward information that, in the most generous interpretation, is misleading or—more generous still, perhaps—driven by errors. In a less generous interpretation, it is simply the Government lying, catastrophising icare's finances in order to bolster their arguments for introducing such a cruel bill. That brings me to the text of the motion before us where, once again, we have numbers that on the face of them perhaps could be correct, but in the context in which they are put imply a worsening of icare's finances. When we look at what is being said and compare it with what data we already had, it becomes clear that we actually have seen an improvement in icare's finances since the Treasurer first began to catastrophise and tell us that the sky was falling in.

Nowhere is it clearer that the Government and the Treasurer are trying to catastrophise and build a case of fear and imminent disaster than in the Treasurer's insistence on describing contributions to the Treasury Managed Fund [TMF] as a bailout. Alternatively, they are just woefully misguided and do not understand what they are doing. But the Treasurer knows full well that we cannot bail out the TMF. The Treasurer is quite proud of himself for playing his part in instigating the McDougall review of icare. This is what McDougall had to say about the economic literacy of people who criticise the scheme as requiring bailing out:

I add that the opportunistic usage of the term 'bailout' misrepresents the truth, which is that the payment into the TMF was a normal, although in monetary terms very large, incident of the designed operation of the NAHLP.

There is nothing of substance in this allegation. The emotive and pejorative term 'bailout' is unjustified. The report is, factually inaccurate. And, to the extent that the media commentary sought to assign to icare responsibility for the need for the transfer of cash into the TMF, it was wrong.

Let's not get hung up on the Treasurer's florid language, despite his stubborn insistence on continuing its use. It is to be expected when the policy unit of this Government is really a media strategy, utterly lacking in intellectual rigour. The Treasury Managed Fund, according to the Treasurer, is incurring liabilities solely, or at least predominantly, as a result of psychological injuries. The Treasurer made the point—in inaccurate and misleading language, but the core of it remains—that the Treasury Managed Fund has received $6 billion between 2018–19 and 2023–24. He would have us believe that was due to psychological injury payments, but that would be a lie, because between 2018–19 and 2023–24, grants totalling $6.1 billion were transferred from the Consolidated Fund to the Treasury Managed Fund under the Net Asset Holding Level Policy. Of the contributions, $3.7 billion is for general lines, including for COVID, natural disasters and historical abuse claims.

The latest icare annual report reads total liabilities were $2 billion unfavourable to budget, driven by the increase in the provision for outstanding claims liabilities. The TMF workers compensation outstanding claims liabilities were unfavourable to budget largely due to higher claims numbers, lower return to work, an increase in psychological claims—mostly in the non-emergency portfolio—and slower work injury damages finalisations and higher weekly active claims in the New South Wales police portfolio. The TMF general lines outstanding claims liabilities were unfavourable to budget due to the significant increase in child abuse claims, event losses largely relating to floods, a large property claim and the impact of a discrimination class action. I have run out of time.  I commend the motion to the House.

In response to other Members contributing to the debate, Abigail said in reply:

I thank all members who contributed to this debate. I am so glad I brought this motion because the Government has now admitted it. It is an extraordinary thing. I am shocked. Firstly, we agree that the Nominal Insurer is $600 million better off. I did not hear anyone say that was not true. No‑one said anything about paragraph (2) of the motion, which says the claim valuation is going to get better by $4.5 billion over the next 10 years. So everything in my motion is correct, despite the Government telling me that I am in some way incorrect. But that is what we expect in relation to this matter. Yes, the financial position of the scheme has improved, as we suspected. I thank Government members for the lesson on the share market! I know a lot about how investment returns work. That is why I pointed out to the Treasurer that those scheme liabilities and valuations are very much dependent on a whole bunch of things that have nothing to do with psychological injury claims.

The fact that the investment income of the scheme has such bearing on the financial position of the scheme is worth focusing on because it brings me to another point: The Treasurer continues to deliberately use the wrong numbers. Every time the Treasurer says that the scheme only has 80 cents on hand for every dollar in liabilities, or words to that effect, he is deliberately using the wrong figure. That number is called the accounting funding ratio. McDougall debunked its usefulness and recommended using the economic funding ratio, which recognises that the scheme is in fact designed to be funded below 100 per cent of the total liability because it relies on investment returns. It is also a long-tail scheme. We do not need to have all the money right now; it is meant to pay out over 20, 30 or 40 years.

Another misleading figure the Treasurer loves to trot out for conservative media outlets is the $250,000 average claim cost of a psych injury, which is just untrue. The State Insurance Regulatory Authority tells us very clearly that the average is $55,915, but the Government has inflated the figure by 500 per cent. This brings us back to the fact that we have a Treasurer and a Premier saying that the sky is falling and that we have a terrible situation of 80 cents in the dollar because they know the average person does not understand the complexities of the icare system. But we do. We know that it is reliant on investment returns. It is reliant on a whole bunch of assumptions that get made. There is no moment of crisis with icare, certainly not to the extent that we suddenly have to be that cruel to the most vulnerable injured workers in our State.

The motion was agreed to.

Read the full debate in Hansard here.

22 October 2025