The NSW Government has today announced the establishment of the new Enhanced Police Support Scheme (EPSS), commencing 1 October 2024 to better support NSW Police Officers who are injured at work.
Replacing the Police Blue Ribbon Insurance Scheme (PBRI), the Enhanced Police Support Scheme will be a new safety net for injured police officers and has been developed in close consultation with the Police Association of New South Wales.
The focus will be on injury prevention, rehabilitation and supporting officers to return to work, wherever possible.
The new EPSS will:
- Streamline support for all injury management claims;
- Improve support for recovery and return to work;
- Address the significant concessional cap taxation issues; and
- Provide an improved safety net to support officers and their families.
The EPSS will provide officers with weekly workers' compensation as well as supplementary support payments for eligible officers who are injured on duty for up to seven years, with the possibility of extension for up to an additional three years in cases of catastrophic exceptional circumstances.
The new scheme puts an end to one of the most financially complex, onerous and unfair imposts imposed on NSW police for the past decade.
Under the PBRI, insurance premiums to protect officers if they get sick or injured at work were paid by the government with a small officer contribution (1.8 per cent of salary).
The amount was paid into each officer's superannuation account, which was immediately transferred out to the insurer. When the Australian Tax Office looks at each officer's income, they count the extra super contributions made for their insurance as income.
This meant police officers' incomes were artificially inflated, making them look higher than they actually are.
Many police officers end up breaching high income thresholds that cut them off from benefits they may have been entitled to including:
- Loss of means tested Commonwealth benefits such as health rebates, childcare rebates and parental leave, entitlements shared by every other Australian dependent on income;
- Loss of family tax benefits;
- Officers receiving child support payments from a former partner were severely penalised as the level of child support is set according to inflated income which counted contributions for PBRI;
- Officers' superannuation accounts inflated by PBRI contributions so that they breach the cap on concessional superannuation tax rates. This means their normal super contributions are taxable at a higher rate. Officers receive large tax bills from the ATO for just doing their jobs and receiving normal employer super contributions; and
- Officers unable to save for retirement by making additional super contributions, making NSW police the only workers in Australia denied the right to do this at the tax rate shared by all others.
The new EPSS scheme fixes those problems for NSW police.
The EPSS will support officers in times of illness and injury and will continue to provide cover for on- and off-duty injuries or if an officer is killed at work.
Police officers will continue to contribute 1.8 per cent of their salary towards the new scheme.
An information hotline has been set up within NSWPF to provide information to all officers on the new scheme.
Attributable to Yasmin Catley, Minister for Police and Counter-terrorism:
"This is a great day for NSW police. Everywhere I have travelled since becoming Minister, police officers have pleaded with me about this dreadfully unfair financial penalty they were being slugged with.
"The Police Association of NSW has fought for more than a decade to get rid of this unfair scheme. Today they have achieved that goal. I couldn't be prouder of the Minns Government for the way we have worked with them to achieve that.
"From October 1 we will have a scheme that makes taking care of our sick and injured police its top priority, helping them recover and come back to work - or taking care of them if they cannot.
"The significant concessional superannuation tax impacts NSW police have endured for more than a decade is being addressed.
"This is one of the greatest reforms for NSW cops in decades and I'm brimming with pride that by working with the NSWPF and Commissioner Karen Webb and the Police Association of NSW, together we've been able to achieve this result for our police."
