Page 4417 - Week 12 - Thursday, 24 October 2019
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Statute Law Amendment Bill 2019
Debate resumed from 19 September 2019, on motion by Mr Ramsay:
That this bill be agreed to in principle.
MR HANSON (Murrumbidgee) (6.00): The Canberra Liberals will support this bill, but we do so noting one area of concern. The bill covers a very wide range of minor and technical amendments across many portfolio areas. The Attorney-General has outlined these both in speeches and in the explanatory statement, and there is no need to repeat them. They all appear to be genuine technical amendments, exactly as a SLAB is intended to be. That is good; it has not always been the case in this place.
Occasionally, a seemingly small change can potentially have more serious consequences. The devil often is in the detail. There is one area in this bill that has been raised as worth noting in this regard. That concern relates to the definitional change of “private medical examiner” in the Motor Accident Injuries Act. The legal profession has raised with us that it could be an attempt to limit the choice of doctors who may be engaged to provide a second opinion on whole person impairment assessment. I make two points. First, if this does in fact lead to less choice and a more limited range of options, it would be worth revisiting. Second, these changes are being made before this scheme has actually started. It is potentially bad process and poor policy to do so. I raise these concerns with the Assembly.
As I said, the bill covers a wide range of areas, but, as we have understood the bill, we agree with the government that these are technical changes. As I said, this is what a SLAB is supposed to be—technical, minor updates—even if the amendments do cover a vast array of bills. With the concerns that I noted with regard to the motor accident insurance area, we will not be opposing this bill.
MS LE COUTEUR (Murrumbidgee) (6.02): The Greens are also happy to support this statute amendment bill, or SLAB. These bills regularly come up. Like this one, they make a range of minor and technical amendments across the statute book. These amendments appear basically to be non-controversial, essentially making laws clearer and correcting minor errors, as is needed from time to time.
I note one amendment which relates to the Motor Accident Injuries Bill that the Assembly passed earlier this year. The amendment relates to a change that was proposed to the Motor Accident Injuries Bill by the Greens and was passed by the Assembly. That amendment ensures that when an injured person’s income is assessed, for the purpose of income replacement payments, the superannuation payments paid by their employer are also taken into account. That struck us as only fair.
Acknowledging that superannuation is not included in schemes in other jurisdictions, and also acknowledging that it will be somewhat tricky to administer, the amendment that passed only applied the superannuation element to people on lower incomes. That was a reasonable amendment—the whole amendment was a good amendment for superannuation—and I was pleased that the Assembly supported it. It makes the
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