Page 3832 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 16 October 1991
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COMMUNITY LAW REFORM COMMITTEE
Reports and Ministerial Statement
MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General, Minister for Housing and Community Services and Minister for Urban Services): Mr Speaker, for the information of members, I present the following reports from the Community Law Reform Committee of the Australian Capital Territory: Report No. 3, entitled Contributory Negligence and Funeral Costs in Fatal Accident Cases, and Report No. 4, entitled Loss of Consortium and Loss of Capacity to do Housework. I seek leave to make a very short statement.
Leave granted.
MR CONNOLLY: Mr Speaker, the Government welcomes the third and fourth reports of the ACT Community Law Reform Committee. I am able to advise the house that the Government will be living up to the precedent, which has been well set by the former Government in this Assembly, of responding very promptly to these reports, and I hope to be introducing tomorrow legislation which will act on these reports. I foreshadow that to members so that they can respond and make further remarks tomorrow.
The most significant single aspect of these Law Reform Committee reports is the abolition of the old-fashioned and demeaning tortious action of consortium, which was a legal action that was premised on the legal concept that a wife was property of a husband and that the loss of a wife was to be equated with the loss of a cow or the loss of a slave.
A husband could receive monetary compensation for the loss of a wife, but a wife could not receive monetary compensation for the loss of a husband. It was premised on that ancient and obviously discredited and inappropriate English common law doctrine of a wife being property, and it will reflect credit on this Territory and Assembly when that action is removed.
Mr Speaker, I thank the members of the Community Law Reform Committee for continuing the extraordinarily high quality of work and beneficial contribution to the ACT community in these two reports. I look forward to a constructive debate when the Government promptly responds to these reports, hopefully tomorrow.
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