Page 1625 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 14 May 2019
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Clause 255, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 256 to 259, by leave, taken together and agreed to.
Clause 260.
MR COE (Yerrabi—Leader of the Opposition) (6.20): I move amendment No 75 circulated in my name [see schedule 1 at page 1642].
Amendment negatived.
Clause 260 agreed to.
Clauses 261 and 262, by leave, taken together and agreed to.
Clause 263.
MR COE (Yerrabi—Leader of the Opposition) (6.21): I move amendment No 76 circulated in my name [see schedule 1 at page 1642]. Amendments 76 and 77 ensure consistency and fairness in working out the costs for the mandatory final offers.
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) (6.21): The government opposes the amendment because it does not protect the injured person’s final awarded damages. Mandatory final offers occur as part of the compulsory conference process. Without the legal cost provision, heavy costs could be imposed as a result of pursuing a claim that results in damages less than $50,000. High legal costs could leave an injured person with an extremely small amount of damages. Without the provision, an injured person may need to pay legal costs up to $10,000, based on the default cost provisions of the Civil Law (Wrongs) Act.
MS LE COUTEUR (Murrumbidgee) (6.22): The Greens do not support this amendment and we do not support amendment 77. I will talk to the two together. There are existing provisions in the CTP act which are designed to protect people from having to pay high costs when they receive a small amount of payment for their injury. These apply where common law final offers are minimal. The Liberal amendment proposes to remove these limits, exposing injured people to potentially high cost payments and, through that, limited payments will not actually end up being enough to use to remediate their injuries.
I would like to emphasise that, as with the previous amendments, this amendment will in fact have the major impact of lawyers potentially getting more money at the expense of injured people. And that is not what these amendments are meant to be about. I do not know why the Liberal Party is doing that. You can make assumptions, but I do not know why.
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