Friday, 23 March 2018
ACT CTP: Don't trade away a fair and stable scheme for illusory savings
The President of the ACT Bar Association, Ken Archer, and the President of the ACT Law Society, Sarah Avery, today urged members of the CTP citizens’ jury to carefully consider the impact of their deliberations on injured Canberrans.
The citizens' jury is meeting this weekend to select a model scheme from the four options prepared by Government consultants.
All of the models impose some form of restrictions on the ability of people injured through no fault of their own in road accidents in the ACT to be fully compensated for their injuries. Alarmingly, the restricted access is imposed in an arbitrary manner and will unfairly limit the compensation available to many injured people.
This means Canberra road users injured through no fault of their own will lose their right to full compensation — in order to pay for the benefits that the driver who caused the accident will gain.
Arbitrarily cutting compensation means that those injured people are no longer fully supported. This will adversely affect their recovery and mean that they and their families will suffer ongoing financial hardship.
The jury are being forced to choose to between models that are poorly explained and which do not make clear the impact on injured road users, particularly those who have been injured as a result of the negligence of others. The power of insurance companies to determine when and if compensation is paid has been expanded. It is far from clear in any of the models how insurance companies will be compelled to ensure injured people actually receive the early treatment which is a supposed 'feature' of the models.
The proposed models will create a new bureaucratic maze which injured road users will have to navigate through for very uncertain results.
The ACT scheme is one of the fairest and most stable CTP schemes in the country. It is at risk of being traded away in the cause of what will surely turn out to be small but ultimately illusory savings.
For further information contact:
Ms Sarah Avery, President, ACT Law Society, T 02 6274 0300
Mr Ken Archer, President, ACT Bar Association, M 0408 600 482