Page 1876 - Week 05 - Thursday, 16 May 2019
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I particularly want to thank the drafters who worked on our amendments, particularly Christina, David and Daniella. They did a superb job of working on this legislation. It is a huge body of work. I imagine it is a little bit daunting and at times hard to be motivated as a drafter when you have instructions from the opposition that you know have a fair chance of not progressing. But of course we need to have this facility. We do need to have these amendments drawn up so that we can ensure that we get the best possible legislation. I really am very grateful to PCO for their extraordinary professionalism and all that they do to support democracy in the territory.
I also want to thank the many victims of accidents that have made contact with our office and that we have chatted with. I thank the Bar Association and the Law Society for all their advice, and I thank Mr Barr’s office and Ms Le Couteur’s office in particular. Finally, I thank Ausilia in my office, who has done a huge amount of work on this. It really is extremely complex, extremely detailed and very hard to get your head around. I have been very fortunate to have had someone in my office who has been able to really take charge of this from go to whoa. Again, we are disappointed with this legislation. It is going to lead to worse outcomes for motorists and victims of motor vehicle crashes in the ACT, but I hope that in time we can right this wrong.
MS LE COUTEUR (Murrumbidgee) (5.24): I also thank, basically, the same people as the two previous speakers have. I thank government and opposition members for their engagement in this very long and protracted debate. Particularly, from the Greens’ point of view in terms of staff, I thank Matt Jorgensen, who is sitting here; from the Liberal Party, Ausilia; and from the government’s side, Dr Rayner. I am sure there are quite a few other people who have been working a little further removed from my particular involvement, but I thank them very much.
I particularly thank the citizens jury for their hard work on this. It is definitely true that without that citizens jury this result would not have happened. Some of you have different views on that, but that statement, I am sure, is true. There are some important things about the citizens jury. Firstly, it was the first attempt in Canberra to do this. This is not the time to go through all the pluses and minuses, but it is a very interesting process and one that has been good as a whole for the ACT and that shows some of the ways that we can refine the citizens jury process.
I thank the citizens jury for clearly establishing the fundamental change that has been made in this system. Instead of a system where, if you wanted to get some compensation, if you were part of an accident, you had to be able to find someone else responsible—that was the common-law system; it very much had winners and losers—what the citizens jury has said is, “We would like a system which is fair for the people of Canberra so that it treats everybody who is injured as part of a motor vehicle accident effectively the same, at least for the first five years, so that everyone gets themselves patched up as best they can after a very unfortunate accident.”
That is the fundamental change. It is going to mean that around 600 people per year will be better off than they would have been under the old scheme. The Greens think that is an important step forward for fairness. I am sure there will be issues with the new scheme.
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