Page 1546 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 14 May 2019
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supporting this. We are not going there. We are going for something which we are confident is an improvement on the current scheme, and we are also going for a lot more restrictions and interrogation of what the insurance companies do. Their power will not, hopefully, be unduly increased.
I would also note that the modelling conducted on the proposed scheme shows that with a 10 per cent threshold there may be a small number of people who will still receive payments for medical treatment or lost income even after the five years of defined benefits are up but who cannot meet them as they do not reach the 10 per cent threshold. This has been mitigated by the important amendments which have been made between the exposure draft and the final bill.
I mention one of the first of them: the significant occupational impairment test. I note that the Liberals oppose it, much to my surprise. Injured children still requiring treatment and injured adults still living on benefits after five years will now be able to access common law, despite having less than 10 per cent WPI. The scheme will also now provide options for injured people still requiring medical treatment at five years. These people will be eligible for a lump sum payment from their insurer which can be arbitrated in the ACAT. These were amendments that the Greens negotiated with the government to mitigate any potential harsh outcomes of the application of the WPI.
I would also point out that this scheme has, and has always had, a three-year review, and I would hope that if anything was unduly harsh that would in fact be looked at in that three-year review and we would have time to say, “Okay, this bit needs tweaking.” No, the Greens do not support these amendments or the other amendments in relation to the reduction to five per cent from 10 per cent.
MR BARR (Kurrajong—Chief Minister, Treasurer, Minister for Social Inclusion and Equality, Minister for Tourism and Special Events and Minister for Trade, Industry and Investment) (11.15): Yes, these are obviously some of the more significant amendments. This will come up on multiple occasions, so I will make one set of comments now and then not speak further on this issue through the various future amendments that relate to the WPI threshold.
I state from the outset that it is important to remember in the context of debate on these particular amendments that all injured people will be automatically entitled to up to five years of treatment, care and income replacement as well as quality of life payments for whole person impairments of five per cent or more. This means that these defined benefits will meet the recovery and support needs of the overwhelming majority of people who are injured in an accident.
For most common injuries, whole person impairment scores cluster around multiples of five—five per cent, 10 per cent, 15 per cent. Most schemes that employ a whole person impairment tool set the thresholds at these levels for that reason. The majority of injuries from motor accidents are to the neck and to the spine, and they are mainly soft tissue injuries. We colloquially refer to them as whiplash. More serious injuries, including clinically verifiable nerve damage or material fractures to a vertebrae, of course would then go above that threshold, and the threshold of at least 10 per cent
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