Page 1603 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 14 May 2019
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Amendment agreed to.
Clause 146, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 147 and 148, by leave, taken together and agreed to.
Clause 149.
MR COE (Yerrabi—Leader of the Opposition) (4.49): I move amendment No 29 circulated in my name [see schedule 1 at page 1637]. I thank Mr Barr for giving way on this occasion. This amendment allows for physical and psychological whole person impairment to be combined. The purpose of quality of life benefits is to compensate an injured person for the loss of quality of life they experience due to the injuries sustained in a motor vehicle accident. Logically, then, any WPI assessment must consider the cumulative impact of all aspects of injuries which impact that individual’s quality of life.
It is not unusual for injured persons to suffer both physical and psychological injuries associated with a motor vehicle accident, which both individually and in concert can have a substantive impact on the injured person’s quality of life. An injured person should not be required to elect just one of their injuries or one injury path for assessment. This issue is magnified by the current requirement that an injured person must have at least five per cent to be eligible for quality of life benefits. Under the current proposed legislation, an individual with four per cent physical and four per cent psychological WPI will be excluded from quality of life benefits.
Even though the combined WPI would likely meet that threshold of greater than five, in these circumstances it is fundamentally unfair that the injured person be denied compensation. The government’s proposed amendment does not enable all injuries to be combined like the current scheme does. Whilst it is an improvement on what was in the bill as presented by the government, many people will still be worse off than they currently are. People should not be worse off as a result of this bill. Whilst it is clear that many will be, it should not be at the expense of having to choose either the physical path or the psychological path. We do have to reasonably combine those two because people who suffer both should be treated with the respect that they need.
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) (4.52): Given that my amendments also cover this area, I will both speak to my amendments and respond to Mr Coe’s amendment. I guess from the outset it is important to remember that everyone injured in a motor vehicle accident will be entitled to treatment, care and income replacement benefits to support their recovery. This support will be available for up to five years and will be provided for both physical and psychological injuries. That is an improvement on the current arrangements.
Secondly, the amendment I will move shortly will allow an injured person with both a physical injury and a primary psychological injury resulting from the accident to
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