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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 8 Hansard (19 August) . . Page.. 2866 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

Contributory negligence is something which was very important 20 or 30 years ago in lots of judgments as courts became more and more inclined to think, "Some insurance policy is going to cover this tort. We will give the plaintiff a good go here. We will give them a lot in damages and not worry too much about contributory negligence."It is good to see a restatement of the common law regarding that in this bill, to the extent that a court may reduce a plaintiff's damages by 100 per cent.

An underlying principle of the Ipp report is that people should take responsibility for their own lives and their own safety and there are, indeed, situations in which a plaintiff's irresponsibility is primarily or largely the reason why an accident occurred in the first place. I think that that is important and that that is something we need to recognise, and it is covered in the bill.

There are points in the bill in relation to mental harm. I have an amendment in relation to that. It is a new field. It is something which the courts are coming to grips with and it is something on which we need to tread cautiously.

As I indicated initially, the Chief Minister and Attorney-General was not going to go down the path of caps or thresholds for damages. He is now. I made a note on hearing his speech that he does need to go further. He appears to be doing so now. We have no problems with the point he has made in relation to public authorities. I think that it is sensible.

The provisions regarding equine activities will go a long way to assist that industry, but I wonder why the government is dealing only with the equine industry and equine sports and not with other high-risk sports which people go into with their eyes open, knowing that there is a real risk to them there, and which could have similar problems to those faced by the equine industry.

I will be interested in whether there are any proposals to extend that to some other high-risk sports, because over the last couple of years-I am sure that the sports minister would be very appreciative of this-we have had lots of worrying situations in which insurance premiums for high-risk sports were doubling, trebling or whatever from the previous year. That is a real problem not just in relation to equine sports. It may be that further extensions can be made there. It is possible that the insurance situation is balanced out there, but there are probably a few other sports to which similar provisions to what has been put in the equine part of this bill could be applied as well. On the whole, Mr Speaker, the opposition does not mind the bill and will be supporting it.

MR SPEAKER: Order! The member's time has expired.

MRS CROSS (9.27): Mr Speaker, I have a few comments to make on this amendment bill which has been presented for debate. There are some clauses which I find are very reasonable and appropriate for dealing with some of the issues. However, there are other clauses which cause concern and I will not support them as they stand.

I have circulated amendments to alleviate some of these concerns and I am aware that other members have done so as well. This Assembly will have a raft of amendments

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