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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 8 Hansard (19 August) . . Page.. 2877 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

On clarifying the liability of public authorities, these reforms will clarify the duties of public authorities following the High Court's decision in Brodie. The ACT reforms are based on those in New South Wales and proposed for South Australia. Providing that the courts can refer to earlier decisions in assessing general damages will ensure greater consistency of decisions and will also assist in the collection of data on personal injuries damages, something that is very important.

I turn to changes to the statute of limitations. The bill makes a number of changes to the Limitation Act 1958, which we have discussed. The changes are based on the Victorian provisions and ensure that matters are settled quickly, are heard before evidence is lost and will allow the parties to move on.

I note that the scrutiny of bills committee, chaired by Mr Stefaniak, highlighted concerns that the amendments may amount to an acquisition of property other than on just terms. In the High Court case of Georgiadis, Mason, Deane and Gaudron noted that certain laws concerned with, broadly, the administration of justice could not be fairly characterised as laws for the acquisition of property. Inevitably, laws concerned with dispute resolution may result in persons' rights being modified or extinguished. An outcome of extinguishment alone does not render the law outside power. Limitation laws are an essential element of laws dealing with dispute resolution and the legislation, I believe, is not fairly characterised as an acquisition of property. Rather, the provision deals with the process by which courts may exercise their jurisdiction under the general law.

In concluding, Mr Speaker, I will refer briefly to the announcement that I did make today, which members have referred to, and that was a decision that the government would move to negotiate after considering the options that have been pursued around Australia for the introduction of a threshold or a cap in the ACT. I think everybody in this place is aware of what I would regard as the significant resistance that I have shown over the last 18 months to the prospect of thresholds or caps.

I have opposed much of the force that has been applied to jurisdictions in relation to this tort law reform exercise. I have said in all councils that I have attended and in all forums that I have attended that much of what is being forced on governments and communities round Australia by the circumstances in which we find ourselves in relation to public liability and medical indemnity insurance has led us down paths where we are legislating away existing rights.

We are doing it for a greater good and the only solace that those of us that are committed to protecting the rights of individuals can find from this process is that there is a greater public interest or a greater public good that we seek to serve and that in seeking to serve that public interest, essentially, in relation to thresholds and caps, that public interest is the need to guarantee a top quality, high class, first class, seamless health care system for the people of Canberra.

It is at threat. It has been put at threat by the insurers, by their brutal incompetence, greed and grasping attitude to their profit margin, to their bottom line. I admit that they have bludgeoned the ACT into a position where, having been abandoned by

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