On 3 June 2025, the Legislative Assembly of the NSW Parliament passed the Workers Compensation Legislation Amendment Bill 2025.
It was introduced to the Legislative Council the following day, where it has stayed.
The real story is how the government obtained the numbers to pass this Bill through the Legislative Assembly. It was a trade-off made between two different policy issues.
NSW Government liabilities and native forestry.
Firstly the major beneficiary of this Bill is not business, large or small. It is the NSW State Government.
The State Government is facing an avalanche of increased psychological injuries (mental health injuries). This Bill is designed to appear business-friendly. Not true.
So look at the amendments to the Bill. The Independents and the Greens successfully amended the Bill.
These issues covered excessive work demands, psychological injuries (mental health injuries), and an exclusion for firefighters.
Clearly, these groups had issues with the Bill concerning psychological injuries. So why did they accept limited amendments, which, from the government’s perspective, still effectively limited future workers’ compensation liability?
The answer is that the Great Koala National Park is the full assessment area of 176,000 hectares.
In June, all indications from the NSW Government were that the ALP 2023 Election promise of a Great Koala National Park and a viable, sustainable native forest industry could be met with less than the maximum land claim from NSW State Forests.
However, the Independents and the Greens supported the Workers Compensation legislation with amendments, providing that the full 176,000 hectares of forest would be transitioned to the new Koala park.
The decision was made, and the Cabinet had to support it.
Between the third reading of the Workers Compensation Bill on 3 June and the announcement of the Park on 7 September, the Premier and the Minister for the Environment visited selected timber mills and businesses, and their employees, on the North Coast, and met with environmental groups, tourism operators, and First Nations groups.
On the 7 September (Fathers Day) a raft of “good” things were announced in conjunction with removing 40% of the timber production in the region to establish the Great Koala National Park.
A 10-week business continuity package for those mills closed with 24 hours’ notice, stand-down payments for contractors working in the assessment area and no real plan for the industry going forward – but there was a fund announced for the development of new, largely tourism businesses. All done to demonstrate the government’s support.
Already, this package of goodies is being exposed as nothing special, and indeed, some aspects are just a string of words on a piece of paper or website. More on this to come.
