Greens bill to overhaul injury compensation laws
Newcastle Greens
21 February 2007
Greens bill to overhaul injury compensation laws – it’s only fair
Greens MP and Upper House candidate Lee Rhiannon joined Greens candidate Michael Osborne and local injured worker Bruce Adnum at Newcastle Trades Hall today for the Newcastle launch of a Greens bill to overhaul personal injury compensation laws in NSW.
Greens MP Ms Rhiannon said: “Personal injury laws in NSW have been gutted and injured people like Bruce Adnum now have to wrestle with a system that is inaccessible, complicated and unfair.
“It is disappointing that the Labor government has failed to do the right thing for injured people. The Greens plan to introduce a private members bill to establish a simple, consistent and fair system of compensation.
“Research by the Law Society shows that the number of injured people eligible for fair compensation under the Civil Liability Act has dropped by 64 per cent in NSW.
Greens candidate for Newcastle Michael Osborne said: “There has been a $12 million increase in NSW Medicare costs since the law was changed.
“This means that costs have shifted from insurance companies to Medicare. Injured people are left to flounder while the profits of insurance companies soar.
Bruce Adnum said: "Measuring a person’s injury through an American-style percentage threshold is unfair.
“I see a doctor and after an hour all I come out with is a percentage mark that is meant to represent my injuries. I’m a human being, not a maths sum. This percentage says nothing about the impact my injury has had on my life and my family.”
The Greens plan for a better deal for injured people would:
• Establish a single, consistent procedure for the recovery of damages for all fault-based injuries, whether the injuries occur on the job, while driving or in public areas.
• Repeal the American-style whole of body impairment formula that stops most injured people from receiving compensation. The current threshold tests based on AMA Guidelines are arbitrary and do not account for the broader impact on the person’s life.
• Ensure that compensation claims are determined by an independent tribunal with tenured members, not by bureaucrats or insurers.
