Page 3301 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 20 August 2008
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1 March. That will give everyone time to go through these regulations and iron out any further bugs before the act actually commences. It will also ensure there are one or two sitting dates when further amendments can be made if that needs to occur.
Just further in relation to the nominal defendant, the ACT branch of the Australian Lawyers Alliance conducted a very useful seminar last Friday in relation to this. It has particular concerns in relation to the three months for the nominal defendant. It states that the catch, however, is that for claims brought against the nominal defendant, the claimant only has three months after the day the motor accident occurred to bring a claim. If the claimant does not give notice that the claim is required, the motor accident claim is barred. That is section 86 (2), which I seek to amend. In addition, the nominal defendant cannot waive compliance with the time limit, and the court cannot give leave to bring a proceeding, despite non-compliance with the time limit.
The association goes on to say that this differs from section 181 (2) of the Road Transport (General) Act 1999, which allowed time to be extended by the insurer or by application to the court. My amendment substitutes the following:
The notice of claim must be given under section 84 not later than—
(a) 3 months after the day the motor accident for the motor accident claim happened; or
(b) if the court orders a later day under subsection (2A)—the day ordered.
There is a note in relation to section 98 which reads:
(2A) A court may, on application, order that a notice of claim under section 84 may be given on a day more than 3 months after the day the motor accident for the motor accident claim happened if satisfied that the later day is reasonable in the circumstances of the case.
That would cover any of the situations where the report might well be four or five months down the track for any number of reasons, all of them valid. It recognises effective common practice in these jurisdictions. Hopefully most claims can be brought within three months, but there will be a number of occasions when that is not so. If the provision for three months only remains, lawyers will automatically notify the nominal defendant if there is any remote likelihood that the nominal defendant will be involved. Much of that notification will be superfluous as more facts come to bear in terms of a case. That would have the effect, too, of needlessly clogging up the nominal defendant’s office with protective claims put in which will not be followed through when the facts of a situation become a lot clearer. This amendment will also ensure that the nominal defendant’s office is not flooded with protective claims which are not going to go anywhere but which will cause extra work.
All in all, these are very sensible amendments. They will ensure that this important piece of legislation and its regulations are very much up to scratch when it commences. I certainly hope members will support the legislation commencing on 1 March next year. I thank the Attorney-General for agreeing to bring the debate on tomorrow because of the urgency of the matter. That gives people a day to have a look at the bill, and, as I said, if people have any suggestions to further improve the bill, I
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