Page 3648 - Week 08 - Friday, 24 August 2012
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Clause 9 agreed to.
Clause 10.
MS HUNTER (Ginninderra—Parliamentary Leader, ACT Greens) (5.40): We will be opposing this clause.
Clause 10 negatived.
Clauses 11 and 12, by leave, taken together and agreed to.
Clause 13.
MS HUNTER (Ginninderra—Parliamentary Leader, ACT Greens) (5.40): We will be opposing this clause.
Clause 13 negatived.
Proposed new clause 14A.
MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (5.41): I move amendment No 1 circulated in my name which inserts a new clause 14A [see schedule 2 at page 3683].
This amendment is about preparations for compulsory conferences. There is an anomaly in the act in relation to the way in which matters are prepared for conferences and for trial. Section 139(3)(a) at present requires a certificate of readiness that the matter is ready for trial. In reality, however, it is more than likely that at that point there are various matters that still cannot be confirmed. Hence, while the logic of the process is to facilitate a compulsory conference to see if the matter can be resolved before going to trial, the act requires that the matter be ready for trial at the point before the conference can be held. At present, therefore, if parties wish to dispense with a compulsory conference, they have to incur a cost by applying to the court to exempt the matter.
I am told that you could expect costs for such an action to be somewhere in the range of $5,000 or more, and if there are hundreds of such actions a year obviously the cost builds up, and that adds to the cost of the CTP premiums. My amendment proposes the removal of the reference to the party being ready for trial. This will remove a potential unnecessary cost for parties, inconvenience to all involved and, of course, court time.
I need to comment about the government’s response to the report from PAC on section 139(3). The ACT Treasurer, Mr Barr, says that an equivalent provision requiring parties to be ready for trial has been obtained in Queensland. This is not the case. If the Treasurer, with all the resources at his disposal, 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:
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