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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 9 Hansard (6 September) . . Page.. 2946 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

The point is that the retrospective operation of these changes has unfairly trapped 419 victims who filed applications on or after 23 June 1998 and were not determined by 24 December 1999. It is ungracious and wrongheaded for the Attorney-General to simply dismiss this inequity as the fault of tardy lawyers and a reflection of greedy applicants.

The government appears to be resolutely set against the very concept of fairness. It is much more equitable and logical to treat people who are injured on the same day under the same law than it is to treat them differently because, through a variety of circumstances which could include difficulties in police investigations, delayed prosecution, offenders failing to appear, they lodged applications for compensation on different dates.

Given the fact that we are talking about the loss of entitlements, the fairest approach would have been to have the new act apply to applications concerning criminal incidents that occurred after the commencement date and have applications regarding incidents that occurred prior to the commencement of the new act heard under the old act. This is what we are trying to do through our amendment.

I know that there are precedents for act of grace payments. I would be interested to know if Mr Humphries has considered this. As I understand it, act of grace payments are given when there is an error or there is some unreasonable impact on members of our community. I would think that there was a place here for such an act of grace. I would be interested to know if Mr Humphries would like to consider that and, as obviously retrospectivity is not going to get up, at least try to acknowledge in some way how unfair this is.

The person that Mr Osborne said he spoke to today may well have not been aware of all the issues. I also spoke to her and she is very upset because someone who was affected by exactly the same crime has been given compensation for pain and suffering. How does she feel as a member of the community who is still severely traumatised by what happened to her? She said it is unfair, and of course it is. There is no justification for this at all.

MR TEMPORARY DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Hird): Order! The member's time has expired.

MS TUCKER: I will conclude with that. I will have more to say at the detail stage.

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