When the NSW Parliament heard testimony on 7 October 2025, every story echoed the same failures the Parkes Project had already identified. The blueprint existed. It was just ignored.

The 12 Parkes Principles
1. Weekly Payments – Clarify how weekly payments are calculated to ensure fairness and consistency.
2. Medical Treatment – Guarantee timely and reasonable access to medical and allied health care.
3. Negotiated Settlement – Promote early, negotiated resolution of disputes to reduce litigation.
4. Injury Definitions – Standardise definitions of “injury” and “claim” to prevent technical denials.
5. Serious-Injury Support – Aggregate multiple impairments so severely injured workers are not excluded from lifetime care.
6. Access to Information – Guarantee workers the right to see their files and understand decisions.
7. IME and Claim Limits – Regulate independent medical assessments to prevent repeat or conflicting examinations.
8. Work-Capacity Fairness – Clarify decision jurisdiction and create fair appeal mechanisms.
9. Legal Representation – Ensure funded access to legal advice and representation for injured workers.
10. Return-to-Work – Require collaborative, medically informed return-to-work planning.
11. IME Oversight – Enforce accreditation and accountability for medical assessors.
12. Section 151Z Fairness – Prevent double deductions from damages through fair offset rules.

The Parkes Project wasn’t radical it was reasonable.