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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 9 Hansard (27 August) . . Page.. 2573 ..

MS FOLLETT (continuing):

There appears to be something of an unintended consequence under the existing legislation. The relevant Act requires that solicitors must have professional indemnity insurance, as I understand it, from both the solicitors mutual indemnity fund and insurance approved by the Law Society, so in many cases they might actually be under an obligation to have two lots of indemnity insurance for, in fact, one risk. I do not think that is fair. The information I have is that the solicitors mutual indemnity fund is totally adequate in terms of indemnity insurance for the profession here in the ACT. Furthermore, the specificity of the Act and the constraints placed around insurance at the moment, as the Act stands, do appear to be anti-competitive and against the current spirit of deregulation and of competition that I am sure we all embrace, perhaps with different levels of warmth.

The Bill also removes the requirement for insurance for solicitors who are not practising on their own behalf or who are not practising within a partnership - for example, solicitors who work in a bank or in another organisation and really do not have the need of professional indemnity insurance that other solicitors might have. I think that is probably a sensible measure, and, again, a measure which will save costs to the profession, and I do hope that we see that saving in cost passed on to clients in future.

There is one other matter that I would like to address with my other hat on, and that is as the chair of the Scrutiny of Bills Committee. The Scrutiny of Bills Committee pointed out to the Assembly a possible editorial error in clause 4 of the Bill which does contain two references to section 76 of the Act. I have this morning received advice from the Attorney-General which confirms that that is indeed an editorial error, Mr Speaker, and that only paragraph 4(b) should refer to section 76. Given that that is a relatively minor editorial matter, I believe it is something that could be addressed by the Clerk under standing order 191, which says:

Amendments of a verbal or formal nature may be made, and clerical, grammatical or typographical errors may be corrected, in any part of the bill by the Clerk acting with the authority of the Speaker.

Mr Speaker, if you wish to exercise your authority on that matter, I think it would be an appropriate course of action. As I say, we support the Bill. It is a tidying up exercise, a necessary one, and I hope that the benefits that now flow to legal practitioners in the ACT will be reflected in future in their accounts to clients.

MR MOORE (10.55): Mr Speaker, although I support this legislation I must say that I have a number of doubts about it. The doubts have to do with a general principle, and that general principle is about the amount of power that is being given to professional bodies. I think there are questions that need to be asked. Generally, there seems to be an increase in the power given to professional bodies, yet in other areas we often are undermining the power of other organisations.

On the specific issue of professional indemnity insurance and giving power to the professional body to allow exemptions, we probably should have also given the responsibility. If a person to whom they have provided an exemption is not appropriately covered, then perhaps the responsibility ought to be on the society as a whole for any attempt to seek compensation. Maybe the Attorney-General can indicate whether I have

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