Page 3649 - Week 08 - Friday, 24 August 2012
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Other amendments to the Personal Injuries Proceedings Act … will remove the requirement that parties must sign a certificate of readiness for trial prior to the compulsory conference.
That amendment removes the requirement from section 37 of the so-called PIPA. Section 37(2)(a) provided that “the party is in all respects ready for the conference and the trial”. The bill was assented to on 17 March 2010 and section 37(2)(a) now reads that “the party is in all respects ready for the conference”.
The legal advice I have received from both the ACT and Queensland is that the amendment to the PIPA was meant to also have been made to section 51B of the Motor Accident Insurance Act. The fact that it was not made to the 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.
Various parties have provided advice to the ACT government that this section should be amended, as I am proposing. This advice has been provided for a number of years, including prior to the CTP reform bill of 2008. But the ACT government did not listen to this advice, and by their action they have imposed higher costs on the CTP insurance regime than would otherwise have been the case, and have caused there to be a delay in the finalisation of claims. This is a flawed section that was put into a flawed act by a then flawed and sloppy Treasurer in a flawed and tired government.
MR BARR (Molonglo—Deputy Chief Minister, Treasurer, Minister for Economic Development and Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation) (5.45): The government will not be supporting this amendment. We see this as a wind-back of the 2008 reforms. I am advised that Greens amendment 13 does provide an alternative approach to dealing with these matters and is an outcome that the government could support.
More broadly in relation to the series of amendments that Mr Smyth is moving, the government cannot support these amendments because they effectively remove the substantive reform provisions in the bill around lump sum claims for economic and non-economic loss. They do not provide an incentive for quick claim settlement. They do not provide an incentive for early treatment. They do not address the main areas of uncertainty that are driving up premiums, such as lump sum claims for economic and non-economic loss. They do little to protect the interests of lower income groups and do little to further the entitlements of claimants for early treatment and rehabilitation. They in fact represent a backwards step in the process of CTP scheme reform. Rather than focusing on treatment and rehabilitation of injured people, they focus the scheme even further around legal costs. They undermine the reforms implemented as part of the 2008 act by weakening provisions intended to manage claim costs and elements of a claims process.
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