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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 10 Hansard (28 August) . . Page.. 3442 ..

MR SMYTH (Minister for Urban Services, Minister for Business, Tourism and the Arts and Minister for Police and Emergency Services) (9.57): Mr Speaker, I move amendment 18 circulated in my name, which inserts new clause 11A [see schedule 2 at page 3475].

MS TUCKER (9.58): I move my amendment 1 on the purple sheet to amend Mr Smyth's proposed new clause [see schedule 5, purple sheet, at page 3546].

This adds the word "reasonable" to "obligations" in terms of personal injury plans. One distinctive aspect of this scheme is that it puts pressure on workers to comply with personal injury plans. My amendment ensures that they do not have to comply with something that is unreasonable.

Amendment agreed to.

MR BERRY (9.59): I move my amendment No 5 on the gold sheet to Mr Smyth's amendment No 18 [see schedule 4, gold sheet, at page 3542].

My amendment seeks to substitute proposed new section 10ZI. Mr Speaker, I want to go back over the history-the history as I understand it and as I have experienced it-of the termination provisions in ACT workers compensation legislation. Private sector workers compensation in the ACT did not have a termination clause. A termination clause is a provision whereby the insurance company-or anybody else for that matter, but in this case the insurance company-can terminate, under certain conditions, the benefits flowing to a worker. For many years there was no provision for this in the ACT. Insurance companies had to go to the courts and argue their case if they wanted to terminate benefits. It was argued that because of this, insurance companies were slow to agree to claims which came before them.

The argument about this went on for many years. Eventually there was agreement reached on a range of changes to the Workers Compensation Act provisions in the ACT. One of those was the inclusion of a termination clause on the basis of the insurance companies agreeing that they would process claims more quickly-that is, workers would not have to wait long periods for their claims to be assessed. This removed a problem for the insurance companies in that the presence of a termination clause would not always require them to go to the courts.

You will find in the many speeches made on this matter that the Labor Party agreed to this proposal on the basis that there was going to be more of a commitment by insurance companies to approve claims more quickly. Anecdotally, I have to say that the evidence I have indicates that they are just as slow as ever. I know there are provisions in this legislation which will speed up assessments, but I do not think the insurance companies have lived up to their side of the bargain. Even if they had, I do not think they would deserve to have termination provisions any more rigorous than those that are in the current legislation.

Mr Speaker, subsection (3) of my amendment states:

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