Page 1566 - Week 05 - Thursday, 5 May 2016
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Following the first year of operation of the scheme, an anomaly was identified in relation to the application of the act to ACT government-owned vehicles. As a result of the way the act is drafted, persons catastrophically injured in a single vehicle accident with an ACT government-owned vehicle that is self-insured by the government—so, principally, buses, fire trucks and ambulances—are inadvertently not covered by the existing scheme.
This is because under the act eligibility for the scheme is linked to a vehicle involved in an accident either having a compulsory third-party insurance policy, a nominal defendant claim or being in a commonwealth vehicle. Whilst the CTP insurance scheme is applicable to those ACT government-owned vehicles, CTP is, as we well know, a fault-based scheme.
As a result, injured persons at fault in a single vehicle accident involving ACT government-owned vehicles have no access to treatment and care compensation through the CTP insurance scheme. This means that there is a gap in treatment and care coverage for catastrophically injured persons in motor vehicle accidents in the territory. This situation is both inequitable and contrary to the agreed minimum benchmarks for the NIIS.
If the ACT does not include these ACT government-owned vehicles in the scheme, then under the agreement with the commonwealth, the ACT will be liable to cover the cost of those injured individuals accessing the NDIS. Further, the NDIS does not cover all medical expenses and some of these costs would fall on to the public health system.
To address this issue, the bill proposes to amend the act to extend the scheme to cover all ACT government-owned vehicles. The cost of extending the scheme to cover those catastrophically injured in the ACT as a result of an accident with these ACT government vehicles will be managed through the ACT government’s usual insurance arrangements and hence will not affect the determination of the LTCS levy for motor vehicles.
I turn now to the amendments involving international participants. Based on the scheme’s experience to date, the management of overseas participants for their lifetime raises inherent difficulties both from a participant health outcomes perspective and an administration perspective. The differences in health infrastructure and the lack of knowledge about suitable healthcare professionals in various overseas countries means that it is difficult to provide timely treatment and care for participants in their home country. In addition, arranging ongoing overseas treatment and care increases the administrative costs of the scheme.
To address this, the bill proposes amendments to streamline the delivery of LTCS benefits to participants living overseas through the use of flexible payment options that may be offered to participants who live overseas either permanently or for extended periods.
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