Speech delivered by the The Hon. Adam Searle, Deputy President, Personal Injury Commission

Speech delivered at the Personal Injury Commission In-Person All Staff

By The Hon. Adam Searle

Deputy President, Personal Injury Commission of New South Wales

22 July 2026

Good morning everyone.

Before I commence my remarks, I would also like to acknowledge that today we meet here on the lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora nation. I pay my respects to Elders past, present and emerging, and recognise their unbroken connection to land, water and culture.

My name is Adam Searle. I am a Deputy President of the Personal Injury Commission of New South Wales (“PIC”) and, I think, the newest member of the tribunal which marks it centenary this month.

Together, in our different roles and functions, we each contribute to the ongoing operation of an institution which supports around 17,000 people every year, at a time when they are experiencing what is one of, if not the most, vulnerable times in their lives. And not just those individuals but also their families, friends, their workplaces and employers, easily impacting more than 100,000 persons every year.

In fulfilling our duties, it is easy to just focus on what we have to do, without being fully conscious of those working in other parts of the organisation, the interdependence of our functions, or the fact that hundreds, even thousands of others have come before us over that century … that each of our individual stories is a part of a larger one: the ongoing story of this Commission. We are each a part of that, and custodians of the functions and the trust that has been placed in it by successive generations.

Before I develop this further, I also want to speak briefly about an idea that sits at the heart of public employment, which is separate and distinct from other employment: that of public purpose and public service, that our work, the work you do each day, is about something larger than our individual jobs, immediate responsibilities, or even our particular work units or the organisation itself.

In the world of work, we each perform work to support ourselves and our families. We practise our professions and seek acknowledgement of the quality and importance of what we do, to connect with our peers and collaborate professionally. But in the public sector there is the added dimension of a public purpose – one which serves the whole community and not just ourselves or our employer. In the case of this Commission, that purpose is now and has for 100 years been laid down by Parliament in the legislation which governs and regulates the institution and provides the architecture and benefits of the compensation schemes we are part of administering.

In the case of workers compensation, the PIC and the workers compensation legislation are the outcome of an ongoing social, economic and political dialogue between stakeholders and wider society, mediated by Parliament, regarding the proper rights and responsibilities of workers and their employers.

It is easy to take this for granted, but it did not always exist. In 1926, when British workers were engaged in what became a brutal and, ultimately, failed strike action to advance their working rights and conditions, here in NSW there was not that same need. Parliament had created laws and institutions to enable rates of pay and other working conditions to be determined by an independent umpire, where agreement could not be reached. Today, a recognisably similar system still exists in NSW.

Before the 1926 Act and the Commission, workers and employers had to endure the uncertainties of the common law in resolving disputes about workplace compensation. Parliament saw fit to create the first Workers Compensation Commission and the substantive rights of working people to medical and financial support when injured by work. The work of that institution is today carried on by all of you in the PIC, and also by those in icare, the State Insurance Regulatory Authority, parts of the Department of Customer Service and other institutions as well. This gives you some idea of the scope of the original reform.

A key element of the scheme is that everyday working people can bring their claims to be heard and determined according to law, even where they do not have the means to do so, and to be legally represented without risking their own financial security or even financial ruin, which was often the case beforehand. It is a scheme where the legal representatives on all sides agree to work only for the scheduled fee and, by law, are unable to touch amounts awarded to the worker for statutory workers compensation benefits. It is easy to forget how radical a notion this was when first implemented but now, having stood the test of time, is a cornerstone of the system.

The substantive legal rights afforded by the scheme have been the subject of ongoing and periodic readjustment by Parliament. Change when it has occurred has always been vigorously contested by employers, insurers, workers and their unions, and by political parties and other actors in Parliament. While the parameters are not as disputed as when the original scheme was instituted, the details have always been and are likely to remain so.

The most recent changes have taken effect this month. Given the relatively short period between enactment and commencement of at least some of the legislative changes, there has been enormous effort across the organisation to ensure readiness. I want to acknowledge the work of all of you to make this happen. I know it was not easy.

Members of the tribunal hear and determine proceedings under the law, like a court. Presidential Members hear appeals. Our decisions are scrutinised by the Court of Appeal and, if necessary, the High Court – like any court of law. Our decisions affect, in a direct and meaningful way, the lives of all those involved. But the work we do in this outward-facing function – with our decisions as “the product” if you will – could not occur without all the different functions in the organisation that each of you perform, every day.

You make possible what we do.

This extends to the person processing an application, the analyst preparing a report, the IT person making our computers actually work, the lawyer drafting the Rules by which the PIC operates or carrying out statutory functions as a delegate of the President, the registry officer answering an inquiry from the public, the manager supervising a team – each contributes to a system upon which citizens rely and upon which we as the tribunal also rely to discharge our statutory functions.

In every organisation there is a natural tendency to focus on the work immediately in front of us. We concentrate on our files, our projects, our teams, our deadlines and our performance measures. Those things matter. They are the practical expression of our duties.

But public purpose and public service requires us to see beyond them.

The distinction between a public servant and an employee in any other organisation is not that one works harder or longer than the other. Rather, public service carries a broader purpose. It exists to serve the community, the public interest, and the institutions that underpin our democratic society, not private, personal or commercial interests only.

That broader purpose can sometimes become obscured amid the pressures of daily work, particularly at times of high work volumes and significant change, as is presently the case. Yet every one of those tasks forms part of something much bigger.

Each of us has had a separate journey to be together in this room today.

Like other members of the tribunal, I was a barrister before I was appointed to my current role, on and off for nearly 30 years.

But I did other things as well.

I commenced my adult working life in 1993 at 1 Oxford Street, as a graduate trainee in what was then the inelegantly acronymed DIRETFE – the Department of Industrial Relations, Employment, Training and Further Education.

I was then a political staff member to the NSW Opposition, to the Hon J W Shaw QC, Shadow Attorney General and Minister for Industrial Relations (1994–95).

When the Carr Government was elected, I served as Jeff Shaw’s Chief of Staff for five years (1995–2000). In that role, among other tasks, I was responsible for the design and drafting of legislation regarding industrial relations, procedural and substantive law reform to dust disease claims, and three separate rounds of workers compensation reform, including the Workplace Injury Management and Workers Compensation Act 1998 which we use in the PIC every day.

I practiced at the bar from 2000, engaged in personal injury, industrial and employment law, including the conduct of major industrial cases dealing with wages and conditions and work health and safety prosecutions. Examples included:

• the only fully contested equal pay case in the NSW industrial relations system (Miscellaneous Workers Kindergarten and Child Care Centres etc (State) Award (2006) 150 IR 290);
• determining whether offences provide for absolute rather than strict liability in relation to workers compensation insurance, in the Industrial Court of NSW (Llandilo Staircases Pty Ltd v WorkCover Authority (NSW) (Inspector Parsons) (2001) 104 IR 204);
• the extent of manufacturer’s liability under work safety laws, in the Industrial Court of NSW (WorkCover Authority (NSW) (Inspector Mulder) v Arbor Products International (Australia) Pty Ltd (2001) 105 IR 81), as junior counsel instructed by Mr G. Phillips as His Honour then was.

I also served the community in the Blue Mountains where I still live today as a local Councillor for 13 years (1999–2012) and Mayor for two (2008–10). My work was not only concerned with rates, roads and rubbish, but also the drafting and implementation of what was then a completely new form of local planning instrument designed to meet the particular needs of a city in a national park and, subsequently, a world heritage listed area. A little like workers compensation, this was hotly contested at both a macro and local level, but the hard work which went into the process led to a settlement with broad community and multi-party support which endures to this day.

I was a Member of Parliament in the Legislative Council for 12 years, serving as Deputy Leader or Leader of the Opposition and shadow minister in a variety of roles, for more than 10 years.

In that time, apart from my partisan role, I was significantly engaged in the conduct of Parliamentary inquiries and reports, including into the Coronial jurisdiction, the redesign of the system of Budget Estimates, and holding government to account through the production of state papers.

I returned to practice at the Bar in 2023 and was engaged in matters concerned with child protection, occupational regulation and environmental protection, in particular to do with water licensing – another contested area of law and public policy.

Each of these different roles, even those where I was engaged in private legal practice, have connected me and what I do to a wider, public purpose, created by law. While they also concerned private and commercial legal and financial rights, the determination of whether, in a particular case, the proper regulatory standards were met, or the applicable public interest was engaged, was itself in the public interest.

This is also the case with the legal profession in its role in connection with the workers compensation and motor accident compensation schemes.

And so it is with what each of you does in this organisation.

Most members of the public will never know your names. They may never understand the complexity of your work or what it is you do. But they experience the outcomes of it every day. They experience it when public institutions like the PIC act fairly, when decisions are made impartially and professionally, and when people are treated with dignity and respect.

That is why public service is not simply an occupation. It is a form of custodianship.

This means recognising that the institutions we serve existed before us and will continue long after we are gone. We are temporary custodians of something enduring. Our responsibility is not merely to perform our own role well, but to leave the institution stronger, more trusted and more capable than when we found it.

There is an important ethical dimension to public service. Public institutions depend fundamentally upon trust.

Trust is earned not through speeches about values or from awards, although they can be important, but through thousands of everyday decisions made by public employees like you. It is built when we act fairly when no one is watching, when we resist shortcuts that might compromise standards, and when we remain professional despite pressure.

Every generation of public servants inherits a level of public confidence and plays a role in either strengthening or diminishing it.

In a world where trust in institutions of all kinds – public, private, religious and civic – has been eroded, working each day to earn and maintain community trust in the work of important public institutions, such as the PIC, is a public good in itself. This is in addition to the public good embodied in what it is we collectively do.

I think that perspective changes how we view our work. It encourages us to move beyond questions such as: Is this part of my job? Does this affect my area? Instead, we ask: How does this contribute to the mission of the organisation? How does this affect the public we serve? What impact will this have on the integrity and reputation of the institution?

One of the most powerful aspects of public service is that it connects individuals to a shared purpose, connecting ordinary tasks and extraordinary purposes.

In this, we are acting to deliver fairness, justice, safety, economic confidence as well as the public trust I referred to earlier.

No single person delivers these outcomes alone. Every significant achievement is the product of collective effort. Every effective institution is built on the work of many people whose contributions may be unseen, but are essential.

That means we all share responsibility for outcomes, even when they extend beyond our immediate area of control.

As people engaged in a public purpose, we will all have difficult days. During those times it is helpful to remember why the work matters.

It matters because communities rely upon effective institutions such as the PIC to deliver timely and fair outcomes. And it matters because every one of us has the opportunity, through our daily conduct and effort, to contribute to something larger than ourselves.

So perhaps that is the enduring challenge of public service: to look beyond the boundaries of our particular role and recognise the wider purpose to which it contributes.

To see ourselves not merely as individuals performing tasks, but as custodians of this institution and its ongoing mission.

Not merely as members of a team, but as contributors to the public good.

And not merely as individuals pursuing careers, but as participants in a collective endeavour that serves the community and strengthens public confidence in the institutions upon which our society depends.

Thank you.