Page 3355 - Week 08 - Thursday, 23 August 2012
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I note that the Treasurer has said that the situation in the ACT is the same as that which applies in Queensland, but this is not the case. If the Treasurer had undertaken effective research into this matter, he would have discovered that on 7 October 2009 the then Queensland Attorney-General introduced a bill to remove a similar provision from the Personal Injuries Proceedings Act, or PIPA. The attorney said in his second reading speech that other amendments to the Personal Injuries Proceedings Act will remove the requirement that parties must sign a certificate of readiness for trial prior to a compulsory conference. This amendment removed the requirement from section 37 of the so-called PIPA. Legal advice I have received from both the ACT and Queensland is that the amendment to PIPA was meant to have also been made to section 51B of the Motor Accident Insurance Act. The fact that it was not made to that act was an oversight. Section 51B as it stands has never been tested in Queensland. If it was tested, legal opinion is that a court would make the appropriate declarations.
Irrespective of the situation in Queensland, I see absolutely no reason why the ACT should retain the provision for such a certificate to be provided, it is an unnecessary cost impost on the CTP insurance scheme and it is an unnecessary delay to achieving progress in resolving claims. Again, I will deal with this matter when we get to the detail stage, and I will comment on my further amendments also at that time.
What the Canberra Liberals today will seek to achieve is balance. We want to improve the process to keep more people out of the court which will lead to better outcomes and also a cheaper system. That should put downward pressure on CTP premiums, making premiums cheaper. But we do not want to legislate away people’s rights, and that is the balance that is required.
These amendments to the act will take the scheme from using the American Medical Association guidelines for determining degree of injury from AMA 4 to AMA 5. These guidelines were never intended to be used as a method for determining the compensation that somebody should be paid having been injured in a motor vehicle crash. It is for that reason that we will seek to remove clause 22 from the minister’s bill.
This bill does nothing to achieve that which the minister says. When he tabled the report yesterday he talked about the monopoly the NRMA has. The NRMA is a sole provider; it is no monopoly. There is no monopoly in the ACT for the provision of CTP. Any insurance company that wishes to make that decision can come to the ACT, having met the requirements, any time they want. It is not a monopoly, and the minister should know better and should not be putting that rumour about. But, of course, that rumour suits his case.
These processes that the minister put in place from my discussions with insurance companies will not guarantee a single insurer will come to the ACT. They use words like “might be more inclined to” or “slightly more inclined to”, but none of them would give me a guarantee. There are other things that they want, but these are things that, clearly, the minister is not willing to give them, otherwise they would be in his bill today. They all told me they made quite clear to the minister the things they required before they would come to the ACT.
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