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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 6 Hansard (17 June) . . Page.. 1905 ..
MR STANHOPE
(continuing):territory suffer loss or damage as a result of the negligence of someone else. Let's be clear about that and let's each ensure that members of the Canberra community understand that that is what we are doing.
I have been resisting knee-jerk responses to this matter. I have resisted as hard and as long as anybody in Australia on these issues. But some of my colleagues in the states certainly rushed in precipitantly and made decisions around the diminishing of citizens' rights in a way that they will live to regret. I have said, and I will continue to say it, that this burst of tort law reform that this nation has been engaged in will not pass the test of time or history. In the future, we will look back on what we have all been dragged through with degrees of regret.
Mr Smyth
: Come up with something better, then.MR STANHOPE
: We are. We are resisting in the ACT to an extent that no other jurisdiction has. We have been caught up in a frenzy of so-called law reform in which other governments have been forced and blackmailed into action by the insurance companies and professions-in particular, the medical professions. We, as a very small jurisdiction, an island in the middle of New South Wales, are in an invidious position in relation to this issue.That is not a message that, certainly, the Liberals within this place are seeking the government to make or to support in our resistance to some of the knee-jerk responses that are being made in other jurisdictions. We are holding out to the extent that we can. Nevertheless, we are seeking in the reforms that we are making to balance the need for us to have public liability insurance available so that the community can continue to operate as it does, so that we do have available to us the services we need, so that doctors do continue to provide the patients and clients of the ACT with the level of service that they need and expect and that other professionals do likewise.
Every time we engage in this debate we need to say, and be up front and honest about it, "Yes, all right, we will reduce the statute of limitations, but understand what that means. Yes, we will put a cap on compensation, we will reduce the level that you can claim at the end of the day, but understand what that means. Understand that if it is your child that is comprehensively disabled at birth as the result of the negligent pattern of the obstetrician, your right as a parent to claim the level of compensation that is currently claimable or available will be lost forever."
Do not forget that there are people in the ACT who suffered intractable brain damage at birth as a result of the negligence established of their medical practitioner. They have no quality of life. Understand that.
Mr Smyth
: I take a point of order, Mr Speaker, under standing order 118 (b). Is the minister not debating the issue and not answering Mr Hargreaves' question?MR SPEAKER
: The question was about the medical profession and how insurance affects its members. It is quite reasonable to talk about the effects on patients as well.MR STANHOPE
: Mr Speaker, I will wind up now. Those are the significant reforms. There is a third tranche of reforms that the government will engage in. The third level of
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