Tuesday 12 March 2013

Lindberg's rocky road at WorkCover



WCVV: Why wasn't he held accountable for the damages he has caused to those injured workers excluded from making a workcover claim due to the lies he Hallam and Kennett told our Federal Parliament? 


Why didn't the Attorney General investigate this? 


Its been 7 yrs and nothing has been done to make him Hallam or Kennett explain why they chose to lie about workcovers financial position?



Story by: By Mathew Murphy
January 20, 2006

AWB supremo Andrew Lindberg quit as WorkCover chief when Steve
Bracks was elected Premier.
AWB supremo Andrew Lindberg quit as WorkCover chief when Steve Bracks was elected Premier.
Photo: Andrew Meares



AWB managing director Andrew Lindberg was a controversial head of the Victorian WorkCover Authority during the 1990s.

In 1999 the then Labor state opposition accused Mr Lindberg in Parliament of spending large amounts of the authority's money on entertainment and travel.

Rob Hulls, then shadow WorkCover minister and now Attorney-General, produced documents showing Mr Lindberg spent $34,646 on entertainment, transport and accommodation, locally and overseas, while heading WorkCover from 1992 until 1998.

It was also reported at the time that Mr Lindberg had spent more than $100,000 on overseas and interstate trips over five years while with the authority.
Mr Hulls told The Age at the time that Mr Lindberg lived "a lifestyle that would make Australia's richest 200 people blush."

The besieged WorkCover chief resigned in November 1999, a month after Steve Bracks was sworn in as Premier, citing an inability to work with the new Government. That was not surprising: as opposition leader, Mr Bracks had gone after Mr Lindberg, calling for his head in July that year.

Mr Bracks attacked Mr Lindberg for "arrogantly and quickly" dismissing a key recommendation by a royal commission into the 1998 Longford gas blast that a major hazards unit should be established separate to WorkCover.

Trade union leaders also condemned Mr Lindberg, saying WorkCover had fallen apart while he was at the helm.
Leigh Hubbard, who was Victorian Trades Hall secretary at the time, was among the chorus who welcomed his resignation.

Yesterday, Mr Hubbard described Mr Lindberg as a "divisive and dogmatic" WorkCover leader who had failed to consult others. "Andrew was quite schizophrenic in the way that he was quite personable on one hand then was wanting to drive through an agenda without talking to anyone," he said. "Granted, that that was under (Jeff) Kennett."

"He appears to have inherited this new problem with AWB and run with it," Mr Hubbard said.Mr Lindberg's 1999 resignation from WorkCover came a week after the authority announced a budget blow-out of $176 million for the previous year.

Mr Lindberg joined AWB in 2000, taking with him a number of his WorkCover colleagues, including director of public affairs Eileen McMahon.

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