Andrew Barr is taking a swing at Canberra’s compulsory third party insurance monopoly.
The issue is that with the ACT’s courts no second insurer is willing to take a chance with our small market and potential for large ongoing payouts.
The key goal of the Government’s legislation is to get injured people to access medical diagnosis, treatment and health services as soon as possible to facilitate quicker return to health and a reduced propensity to develop long-term injuries. In other words, injuries treated now are better than injuries treated tomorrow.
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The Government last year introduced the Road Transport (Third-Party Insurance) Amendment Bill to target more complex claims. This would bring the ACT’s claim regime more into line with other states and territories, thereby encouraging other firms to enter the Territory’s CTP market. This would promote competition among CTP providers and create the right market conditions for lower premiums.
I am calling on the Liberals and Greens to support the legislation in the Assembly in the August sitting. They should support this important legislation to make CTP fairer and reduce the cost of insurance.
I’m not entirely convinced the current system is so bad it warrants tort law reform, with the stripping of rights that comes with it.