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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 8 Hansard (21 August) . . Page.. 3012 ..

MS TUCKER (12.05): The Greens think this amendment is a reasonable concession to the medical profession and their insurers and makes specific reference to accepted medical opinion when it comes to the question of negligence. Arguably an expert would take that into account, but it makes sense to insist that it is so.

Clearly, though, there is the fear and, on occasion, reality of being judged negligent despite following accepted procedure. That fear is significant. At the same time it is important that the issue should not simply be about following accepted procedure, because every situation is different. The point of court cases is to take those individual differences into account. But we will support this amendment.

MR STANHOPE (Chief Minister, Attorney-General, Minister for Environment and Minister for Community Affairs) (12.05): Just on this particular issue of expert witnesses, Mr Speaker: I just want to draw members' attention to the fact, which I might have mentioned in the earlier debate, that the proposal is-and I think it's important that we publicly acknowledge this-that the parties get together and jointly agree on the expert witness. I think, for the sake of balance in the debate that we've had, we need to understand that the proposal is that the parties come together and negotiate on who would be an appropriate expert witness that they would trust to represent their views, to provide the court with an honest and objective analysis of a condition.

This is not saying, "You shall have this expert witness."The proposal set out in section 31ZK is that the parties get together, sit down and agree that this person is an appropriate expert witness to be utilised in this particular case.

In the end there might not be some agreement between the parties and, if that weren't achieved-and one would imagine that it would be in almost every circumstance-if they don't agree, then the court will decide on an expert witness to be nominated by the presidents of the medical colleges of Australia.

This is the process we are proposing here: in the first instance, the parties sit down and agree on an acknowledged expert. If that doesn't work, then the court determines. And you would work desperately to avoid the court determining it because you lose some control. The group of expert witnesses that the court can choose from is a panel nominated by the presidents of the respective colleges.

Question put:

The Assembly voted-

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