Media Release

Thursday 10 February 2000

At WORK REJECTS GOLDEN HANDSHAKE CLAIMS

State Insurer At Work Insurance today strongly rejected allegations that company senior executives were in line for $1 million dollar pay-outs.

Chairman Michael Cashin said his statements to the Accident Insurance Select Committee on Wednesday were correct and that redundancy costs would make-up a minority part of any disestablishment costs for the company.

“Redundancy costs for the total 45 staff are expected to be less than $900,000, and well short of the million dollars claimed for one or two employees.”

Mr Cashin said the statement by ACT MP Ken Shirley appeared based on a news story run by the National Business Review last week which contained several errors of fact, in addition to the false claim of a million dollar pay-out for At Work Chief Executive Sam Knowles.

Mr Cashin said the redundancy provisions for At Work staff were unremarkable in the environment in which the company operated, and were consistent with the normal business practice under which the SOE was required to operate.

ENDS

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