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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 6 Hansard (18 June) . . Page.. 2043 ..
Mr Quinlan
: They can have that as well. You are just precluding their later rights. You are lessening their rights. They have all the rights you are talking about. You are just cutting them back.MR SMYTH
: Here you go. You love it when the Treasurer chips in, Mr Speaker. He has just said, in case Hansard hasn't got it, that I am cutting them back later in the process.MR SPEAKER
: Don't respond to interjections.MR SMYTH
: He not worried about the early bits of the bill; he is worried about the later effects. Well, the Treasurer is showing his ignorance. He is showing clearly that he has not read the bill, because it doesn't preclude access to common law-those rights are protected. It is the best of both worlds, Treasurer-early rehabilitation and, if that is not successful, access to common law.Mr Quinlan
: No, no, the best of one world. Wrong.MR SMYTH
: That is what is proposed in the insurance framework bill.MR SPEAKER
: Order, members! Mr Smyth, direct your comments through the chair.MR SMYTH
: Mr Speaker, I do apologise. He does interrupt at the wrong times, doesn't he?Working backwards, let us get back to what the Treasurer said. I think what we have got today is a very sad signal from the Treasurer. It says they put litigation before rehabilitation, and that is a really sad signal. They are putting the courts before the victims, and that is not how it should work. What they are saying through the three tranches of their approach that have now taken 15 months-the snail pace stampede of legislation-is that they will put law before people. My bills are saying that rehabilitation is what we should be working towards, and I do not think we can afford to wait two or three years.
Mr Quinlan also said that my bills would put the ACT in a unique position. Well, oddly enough, the workers compensation reforms of two years ago put us in a unique position-we are the only jurisdiction with them. And oddly enough, today the Chief Minister said, "We won't be stampeded, we're going to be different from the rest of the country, we're going to be better."Mr Speaker, does that put us in a unique position? I think so. So when it suits them they say, "We can be unique."When it does not suit them they say, "We're not going to be unique because we don't have the broad mind to understand what this might do,"and that is what the problem is with the government.
They then go on to say that it is fiscally irresponsible. All right, Treasurer, where is the work that shows this? If it is fiscally irresponsible, where is the work? Table it now. Mr Speaker, I take the Treasurer up on his earlier offer, and it is a shame the Treasurer chooses to ignore this. The Treasurer offered earlier to circulate his advice. I would ask the Treasurer, before the debate closes or at some other time today, to table the advice that he so kindly offered to provide.
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