Page 4342 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 30 November 1994
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In effect, the Bill restores rights that were destroyed by the Limitation (Amendment) Act 1993. This restoration will be beneficial to those whose rights are restored by this Bill. But, on the other hand, it will be prejudicial to those against whom these rights are enforced.
It is a question, Madam Speaker, of where the line is drawn in relation to this particular matter. I regret that perhaps we dealt with the Government's Limitation (Amendment) Bill 1993 in some haste, but I believe that by supporting Mr Humphries's amendment Bill today we are certainly allowing to proceed two cases which would otherwise have been very severely affected by the application of the Limitation (Amendment) Act 1993. Madam Speaker, I am pleased to support Mr Humphries's Bill.
MR HUMPHRIES (12.11), in reply: Madam Speaker, in closing the debate, I would like to thank members for their broad support for this Bill. The Bill has been produced and brought before the Assembly and will, I trust, be passed in a very short period of time - although a substantially longer period of time than was the case with the original Bill that produced this problem. Madam Speaker, the Minister has made it clear that the package of which the Government's Bill was part was legislation that it was extremely important to pass quickly. Members will recall that on 23 November 1993 the legislation to protect Territory revenue from a possible adverse decision by the High Court was introduced. Subsequently, on 25 November, two days later, the Limitation (Amendment) Bill was passed, and that caused considerable problems of the kind that we have addressed in this particular Bill today.
It was very important, of course, that we pass that legislation through the house in two days, and the Opposition fully accepted that at the time. It said that this was an important thing to do at the time. With hindsight, what I regret is also having within that same package to deal with the other issue of changing limitation periods to prevent, as Mr Connolly has described it, forum shopping. It is still not clear to me why that was included in a package of measures essentially dealing with protection of government revenue. There is very little implication for government revenue in a Bill which prevents people from forum shopping around the country. I would say to the Government: Please, if you seek the indulgence of the Assembly in passing legislation in a very short period of time, do not throw into an urgent package things which are not urgent or critical and which can be dealt with within a longer timeframe. That would certainly make the job of members in other parts of this house much easier.
Ms Szuty has raised the Scrutiny of Bills Committee comment. I certainly accept that there is a question of retrospectivity; but to restore the rights of a person who has lost those rights by passage of legislation, particularly when the defendant in these cases is clearly an insurance company that would normally expect these sorts of claims as a matter of course and would not normally have difficulty in dealing with these sorts of claims, is an issue that we can quite properly deal with without offending the principle of adverse retrospectivity.
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