The stroke of midnight on New Year's eve will deliver very different outcomes in the lives of different people. For more than a million Sydney people it will be " party night " and they will throng the best viewing spots to watch a $ 6.8 million fireworks display light up the bridge, the harbour and the Opera House.
That fireworks display has become a world event. Due to the earth's rotation, Sydney is one of the first major cities to ring in the new year and television stations all over the world feature the Sydney fireworks because it is one of the biggest spectacles. Our fireworks are famous and the media exposure helps to bring tourists to our shores. The vast number of International visitors who enter this country use Sydney as their entry point.
The moment after the last rocket explodes and the sky returns to black, those New South Wales people with work related illnesses will face a bleaker future. A law change has moved the goal posts when it comes to the insurance industry's obligation to fund ongoing treatment for illnesses deemed to be caused by work related exposure.
The worker's compensation rules have changed - and now the ongoing cost of treatment will be entirely borne by the sufferer. Even when the matter has been processed through the courts and this has resulted in a finding that the employer was negligent and ordered to foot the medical bill for the patient's ongoing treatment - this law change makes that null and void.
The former " certainty " that financial planning can be based on insurance picking up the tab for the ongoing treatment of injuries such as Melanoma and other skin cancers no longer applies. With the stroke of a pen, benefits that have existed for decades have been swept away.
It looks like the commercial world is facing tough times and it is necessary to have a long, hard look at the costs of doing business. One of those costs is ever rising insurance premiums and it seems to be decreed that these can be lowered by cutting back on the benefits to make them more affordable.
Industry claims that the pendulum has swung too far in the workers favour and now they must share more of the expense for " natural illnesses " that may have a wide variety of causes - and are not solely work related. Skin cancer seems to be a case in point. Obviously, a job that requires a worker to remain in the open and is exposed to the sun has a direct cause on skin cancer, but it is equally evident that similar activity in leisure time has an equal effect. To blame this entirely on the work aspect is drawing a very long bow.
As one year comes to a close and another one makes a start, the rules under which we live deliver different outcomes. No doubt this change will receive further legal challenges in the law courts.
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