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Other Parliamentary SpeechesThis page is dedicated to Peter's speeches during parliament that do not fall under Questions or Questions without notice. They range from debating legislation, reporting on events or issues in his seat of Southport and his Ministerial Statements.
Civil Liability Bill |
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| Posted by Administrator (admin) on Apr 02 2003 |
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Mr LAWLOR (Southport-ALP) (11.31 a.m.): I rise to support the Civil Liability Bill 2003, which is part of a national process of tort reform. Queensland made an early commitment to the national process of reform. This involved the review of the law of negligence conducted by a panel charged by Justice Ipp of the New South Wales Court of Appeal. The purpose of the reform is to reduce the pressure on insurance premiums in the area of public liability and medical indemnity. It will achieve this by clarifying the law of negligence and reducing the circumstances in which a person will be liable. These reforms bring a commonsense approach to the law. It will reduce the awards of damages and it will streamline the procedural aspects of bringing claims.
The bill clarifies the law regarding when a person will be liable for injuries resulting from obvious risks. This reform makes commonsense. It reflects the community expectation that people need to take some level of responsibility for their own safety. The bill means that there is no duty to warn of an obvious risk. Extra protection is provided to people who provide services that are dangerous recreational activities. They are not liable for any injury arising from an obvious risk. This means that not only are they not required to warn of it, but they are not required to take steps to prevent the obvious risk. Some examples of an obvious risk would be a person diving into a rock pool at a national park. It is obvious that if someone does that they may hit their head and cause themselves an injury. Also, for a person bungee jumping it is obvious that they might hit their neck; similarly, slipping on rocks on the beach or injuring a knee while playing football.
Professional indemnity premiums have increased enormously in the last 12 months. Several measures in this bill will address this problem. There will be no liability for a professional if he or she acts in a way that was widely accepted by peer professional opinion by a significant number of respected practitioners in the field. This effectively means that, where there is a dispute about expert evidence, the court should err on the side of the professional. The bill gives protection to injured individual volunteers doing community work. This recognises the valuable community service provided by these people, but it does not exempt the community organisation from liability. This is important because, notwithstanding the need to protect volunteers, we cannot ignore the plight of people injured through no fault of their own.
The bill provides further protection to organisations engaged in emergency rescue operations, and that is referred to in clause 27. This recognises that in an emergency situation accidents that are unavoidable can occur. The government is particularly conscious of the need to protect the rights of injured children. The law must always recognise the vulnerable position of children in our community. Nevertheless, members of the medical profession have persuasively argued the need for early notification of claims in order to ensure the continued provision of medical services to children. The Australian Medical Association of Queensland has consistently advocated that the savings from early notification should be derived from the greatest certainty in pricing rather than disentitling legitimate claims by children.
The bill provides a balanced approach. It protects the rights of children whilst ensuring the early notification of claims. Early notification is in everyone's interests and should ensure that injured children are treated early and therefore compensated early. Early notification provides certainty for doctors and their insurers. It makes it much easier to cost insurance for medical practitioners treating children.
I note the comments of the member for Maroochydore and others on that side of the House in the debate on the Personal Injuries Proceedings Bill. On 19 June 2002 the member for Maroochydore said-
The government has failed to fulfil its promises to address the statute of limitations, particularly in regard to obstetricians who can be sued for adverse outcomes resulting at the births of their patients for up to 21 years.
Further-
Those who have a long tail of potential claims of up to 21 years, such as obstetricians, are certainly not happy with what they have seen in this legislation. Other specialists and GPs hold similar concerns.
It is amazing that the opposition has such a willingness to take away the rights of the most vulnerable in our community, the children. The member kept referring to changing the statute of limitations without acknowledging that that would impact directly on the most vulnerable members of our community, the children. This provision strikes a sensible balance whereby there is the requirement to notify early the possibility of an injury to a child. If the insurance industry is being honest, they will respond positively to this legislation. All the legislative amendments made by the government should result in reduced premiums. I am fearful, however, that the savings which will result from the new legislation will simply translate into a better bottom line for the insurance company. In that regard I refer to several letters, the first being from the Premier to the Prime Minister on 19 November 2002. The letter states-
I am writing to request that the Commonwealth government take immediate steps to introduce new legislation to provide the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) with the powers to ensure that the benefit of negligence law reform being pursued by States and Territories and related reforms by the Commonwealth, flow through to consumers by way of reduced premiums.
The response, unfortunately, on 23 December 2002 from the Prime Minister said, amongst other things-
Therefore, I am not disposed at this time to give the ACCC powers of the type you propose.
The Prime Minister did concede that, if it becomes clear that cost savings are not being passed on to consumers, he would reconsider the matter. The Premier again wrote to the Prime Minister on 27 February 2003 in response to that letter-
I note from your letter, you have rejected my proposal for the Commonwealth government to take steps to introduce new legislation to provide the ACCC with investigative and enforcement powers to ensure the benefits of negligence law reform flow through to consumers ... I maintain that the ACCC must have the power to take action and impose financial penalties if an insurance company is charging unreasonably high premiums having regard to conditions of supply and demand, law reforms and other relevant considerations.
It is incumbent upon the opposition to prevail upon their colleagues in Canberra to get the Prime Minister to give the ACCC the required powers to ensure that the law reforms that we have put in place and which should result in reduced premiums in fact do so and do not, as I have already suggested, simply result in a better bottom line for the various insurance companies. I congratulate the Attorney-General and his hardworking ministerial and departmental staff and I commend the bill to the House. Last changed: [PUBLISHED_DATE] at 12:00 AM
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