Page 2309 - Week 06 - Thursday, 10 May 2012
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One of the things the committee talked about and made a recommendation about was vision zero, a vision the previous Chief Minister was quite positive about—that is, the vision of having zero fatalities on our roads. It is certainly a vision the Greens have. This is what we should be aiming for; this is the way we should be reducing third-party insurance premiums—having less things to compensate rather than paying less money to the people who are injured.
Despite the fact the committee did not support the bill in its current form, it very much appreciated the work of the government with regard to the ACT compulsory third-party insurance scheme. The committee acknowledges the government may choose to bring forward further reform with respect to the scheme. The committee, however, is of the view that any further reform should not take place until the government has had sufficient time to consider the committee’s report and to take into account the findings of its statutory review pursuant to section 275 of the act and the findings of the internal review of the New South Wales CTP insurance scheme.
The committee was fortunate in receiving a good number of submissions, including supplementary submissions, to the inquiry and was grateful that it was able to draw upon a wide range of expertise and experience in its deliberations. The committee recognises the significant contribution of time and resources required to participate in an inquiry of this nature, and many of the recommendations or variations thereof suggested by participants have been adopted as recommendations in the committee’s report.
The committee wishes to thank all stakeholders who contributed to its inquiry by making submissions, providing additional information and/or appearing before it to give evidence. As I said at the beginning, I very much thank my committee colleagues and, most of all, the Committee Office staff, in particular Dr Cullen, and I commend the report to the Assembly.
MR HARGREAVES (Brindabella) (10.11): Very briefly, I want to indicate to the chamber why it was, in fact, that a government member on the committee would say something negative in a report about a government bill. The essential element of my position is “not yet”. I think the bill needs some refining and it needs to address one or two things going forward. Once that is done, I think that will be an acceptable process.
The underlying principle that we need to bring premiums down for the majority of people is not in dispute. We understand that the conversation in the community is a conversation about a capped system versus the common-law system. This is part of that conversation, and I applaud the government for starting and continuing that conversation.
Some of the areas I had issues with were lifetime care and catastrophic injury. I am not sure there is enough provision in the bill for that. I was not very happy with using the AMA guides as a definitive threshold. I think we need to have something a little more robust than that. I was not happy with having just one item which was a definitive threshold, and I think we have made that point.
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