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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 13 Hansard (9 December) . . Page.. 4247 ..
MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):
Mr Speaker, we are also not the only government in Australia at the present time to be concerned about criminal injuries compensation increases. I want to quote from an article in Wednesday's Sydney Morning Herald under the heading "Crime compo blow-out prompts calls for curbs". Members will note a remarkable similarity with events closer to home as I read from this article. It states:
Victims of crime lodged more than 1,000 claims a month for compensation in New South Wales during the past financial year, prompting calls for further reforms to the State's scheme, which now has liabilities of around $150 million.
... ... ...
With the average payment around $10,000 -
I break in here to point out that the ACT's average claim is $13,300, so we are even more expensive per capita than New South Wales -
and considering possible court appeals, the total liability facing the tribunal was in the order of $150 million ...
The number of claims lodged over the past few years has ballooned largely due to the fact that more than half the people demanding compensation included temporary psychological injuries such as nervous shock.
Concerned that the shock provisions were being exploited by some lawyers, the Government last year -
the Labor Government in New South Wales -
successfully put forward a series of amendments tightening eligibility for payouts by replacing shock with a more serious category of long-term psychological or psychiatric injury.
Long-term injury, Mr Speaker. The article continues:
But the tribunal's chairman, Mr Cec Brahe, said he believed there needed to be further reforms, including ending cash payments for both psychological and psychiatric injury.
He suggested it would be better to pay for counselling and treatment programs.
Does that sound familiar, Mr Speaker? The article continues:
It would also be better to put guidelines in legislation setting out what constituted psychological and psychiatric injuries.
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