Page 3659 - Week 08 - Friday, 24 August 2012
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Remainder of bill, as a whole, as amended.
MR BARR (Molonglo—Deputy Chief Minister, Treasurer, Minister for Economic Development and Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation) (6.31): It is unfortunate that the most significant elements of the bill have now been removed. The government is disappointed that this is the case.
We need to be very clear that there has been no genuine progress tonight in tackling elements of our outdated and unsustainable CTP scheme. The 2008 reforms, though, are still intact and will continue to operate, notwithstanding the efforts of Mr Smyth to seek to unwind them tonight. I am pleased to the extent that those amendments have been defeated and we have not gone backwards tonight, but let us be clear that there are very few minor improvements from what we have managed to achieve through the various amendments to the bill.
I will take the opportunity in my final remarks on this tonight to thank Bernard Philbrick in my office and the officials from the Treasury Directorate who have assisted the government in negotiating the various elements of the bill that we have been able to secure support of members of the Assembly for this evening. I thank them very much for that. It has been a long and difficult task that I am afraid has not borne all of the fruit that we perhaps would have liked to have seen.
I would like to flag that this will be an issue that will undoubtedly need to be considered again by the next Assembly. We will have to come back and address this issue. It is my expectation that premiums will continue to rise until we address the fundamental issues of thresholds and discount rates. While we have made a small advancement tonight—we have closed a loophole and we have put some downward pressure on the legal costs associated with the scheme—we have gone nowhere near far enough. It continues to be a lawyers’ bonanza. We must address these issues if we are to achieve substantive reform and achieve what I believe 263,000 Canberra motorists want—that is, a sustainable CTP scheme in the long term.
MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (6.34): I think there has been genuine progress here tonight. It is great that all three parties could work together. I would particularly like to thank the staff from the secretariat. Their support was invaluable. As the politicians worked their amendments out on each other the staff had to pick up the mess and bring us back together, so thank you for that.
I think there is reform here tonight. Simply by removing the certificate from the act we bring ourselves into line with Queensland, which the minister was lauding as a good thing. It is just one example of how you can smooth the process to make it work better for all involved. If it means one less trip to court, that is one less fee that a client will have to pay, and that is a good thing.
Mr Speaker, we said when this bill was tabled that we thought it was too early. We thought it was too early because the 2008 reforms were still in their infancy in terms of the process of claims. The report that we finally got hold of said that the 2008 reforms have in fact put some downward pressure on legal costs. That is a good thing.
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