DANIEL MOOKHEY MLC
NSW SHADOW TREASURER
SOPHIE COTSIS MP
NSW SHADOW MINISTER FOR INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS
SHADOW MINISTER FOR WORKPLACE HEALTH AND SAFETY
The Perrottet Government has just voted to save lavish bonus payments for the top executives at his iCare, blocking Labor’s attempt to put an end to the outrageous practice at the scandal-plagued insurer.
The Government’s decision comes despite a looming rise in premiums which will see 3.2 million NSW businesses pay hundreds-of-millions of dollars more to the organisation Premier Dominic Perrottet established back in 2015.
Labor tried to amend the State Insurance and Care Act 2015 in the Legislative Assembly to strip iCare of the power to offer bonuses to future executives. But the Government used its numbers to protect the bonuses of iCare’s top brass.
NSW Shadow Treasurer Daniel Mookhey said Labor would fight on when the bill reaches the NSW Legislative Council.
“The Government’s decision is more proof that he’s losing touch with NSW businesses,” Mr Mookhey said.
“Employers are staring down the barrel of a decade of rising premiums, yet the Government is protecting bonuses for top executives at Australia’s most disaster prone insurer.
“We intend to stand up for employers and injured workers. We will fight against lavish bonuses for iCare’s top executives in the Legislative Council next week.
Documents handed to the Legislative Council show that more than 120 executives at iCare can earn a bonus. iCare can give its CEO an additional $411,000 in bonuses to top up their $800,000 salary. iCare’s CEO is already the highest paid public servant in NSW.
The insurer recently came under fire after the Auditor-General exposed them for underpaying nearly a thousand dust-disease victims up to $93 million. Other internal iCare documents show that premiums are likely to rise by more than 40 per cent by the end of the decade as Mr Perrottet’s insurer continues to rack up billions of dollars in under-writing losses.
Shadow Minister for Industrial Relations and Work Health and Safety, Sophie Cotsis said, “iCare forfeited its social license when it gave its top executives lavish bonuses even though they tanked the NSW workers compensation system.
“iCare will never recover the trust of employers or sick and injured workers unless it reforms its bonus culture.
“iCare provides workers compensation insurance to more than 326,000 businesses. It insures 3.6 million employees. The agency’s investment portfolio is worth $38 billion. The Premier created iCare in 2015. Until last year, it had only ever answered to him.”
Under Dominic Perrottet’s stewardship:
• iCare underpaid 52,000 workers up to $80 million.
• iCare awarded its new CEO a $120,000 pay rise earlier this year, making him NSW’s highest paid public servant.
• iCare is increasing employer premiums by 6% over the next two years.
• iCare tried to introduce a ‘gap fee’ for injured workers needing to see a doctor last year.
• iCare racked up underwriting losses totalling $4.54 billion in the past three years, resulting in the loss of iCare’s $3.9 billion surplus.
• Treasurer Dominic Perrottet had to rush approval of $4 billion emergency bailout of the iCare managed workers compensation fund which was protecting NSW’s police officers, paramedics, nurses and teachers, after it came within 23 minutes of plunging into a crisis in June last year.
• Senior Treasury officials said in internal emails that iCare had a ‘direct line’ to Treasurer Dominic Perrottet, and they could not rein in the scandal- plagued agency.
• iCare last year was caught secretly paying a labour hire company $700,000 to hire a former US Republican Operative to work in Dominic Perotett’s ministerial office as Treasurer.
• iCare was found to have awarded a $140 million IT contract in a seven-day tender, despite bidders warned the rushed process would lead to ruin. The project’s cost has since risen to $360 million and remain incomplete.
• iCare was busted for handing $18 million without tender to the IVE Group, the Liberal Party’s printer and a major donor led by a former President of the NSW Liberals.
• iCare broke its own procurement rules to award at least $6 million of contracts to Korn Ferry, a recruitment firm closely linked to former NSW Liberal Party Minister and Party Treasurer.
• A leaked report from last year shows that Treasurer Dominic Perrottet’s scandal-plagued agency iCare overpaid dodgy doctors hundreds of millions of dollars in duplicate and fraudulent payments.
• iCare handed $4 million in salary and bonuses to its eight top executives in FY 2019, despite the agency losing $873 million that year. 200 of its 1200 staff were also paid bonuses.
• iCare’s former CEO had to resign due to conflict-of-interest after it emerged that iCare handed his wife a $770,000 contract without tender.
• The same CEO and another top executive took an undisclosed sponsored trip to Las Vegas paid for by a multi-million contractor to the agency.
• iCare’s top executives took a total of 36 foreign trips in four years – ten times more than SIRA, their regulator.
• iCare faced an ICAC referral for handing an $11 million marketing contract to a company secretly owned by a top executive at the agency.
• Treasury in September 2019 secretly cancelled an external investigation into probity and governance at iCare after the former CEO complained.
• The State Insurance Regulatory Authority (SIRA) made referrals about iCare to the Independent Commission Against Corruption for further investigation.
• The Auditor-General slammed iCare in a report last December for illegally using employer’s money to bankroll its lavish spending.
• Former Supreme Court Justice Robert McDougal slammed iCare for ‘failure of governance, sloppy execution and difficulties in getting injured workers access to their entitled benefits’ in an April 2021 review.
• An Upper House Inquiry slammed iCare’s Board for ‘comprehensively failing to properly govern the insurer’ in an unanimous report agreed to by all parties.
• A damning independent review from 2019 found that in 46 percent of claims handled, iCare failed to follow the relevant law.
