Page 1554 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 14 May 2019

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happily argue that everybody is equal and should all get the same income under this scheme. It is particularly hard if you are a young person at the beginning of your working life and have a substantial injury and may not go on to do what you otherwise would have done.

I do not think it is possible to say there is a clear, unambiguous answer as to what income should be. But I am unashamedly in favour—as this bill is—of people whose income is less. The reason we chose this particular threshold is that it is one of the existing thresholds for low income earners in this scheme. As members would be aware, there are different amounts of income replacement depending upon how much you earn. The scheme attempts to favour people on lower incomes, and I think that is a good thing.

I note Mr Coe’s comments about superannuation; we should have a whole debate as to whether we should all be paid the same, what is reasonable and whether we should be in a socialist state. But that is not what we are doing today; we are looking at trying to get an improved CTP scheme that gives a higher proportion of payments to low income earners versus higher income earners. That is a good thing.

MR COE (Yerrabi—Leader of the Opposition) (11.00): Ms Le Couteur just said there is no clear, unambiguous answer to this question. She is spot on, and that is the whole problem with this legislation. It tries to create one size fits all for something that cannot be standardised. That is why it is complex at the moment. That is why, in settlements, consideration has to be given to all the different factors at play. Where one victim is at in their life is going to be totally different to where somebody else is at, yet this legislation proposes to standardise it and just say that everyone is at the same point in their career, their family, their income trajectory et cetera. Ms Le Couteur highlighted a fundamental problem with this scheme when she said there was no clear, unambiguous answer. Yet for some reason they have signed up and given a blank cheque to the government.

Question put:

That the amendment be agreed to.

The Assembly voted—

Amendment negatived.

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