The small business sector will have to wait for legislative changes to take effect to ease their insurance nightmare after today's ministerial meeting decided to review their reforms.
After receiving the recommendations of the Ipp review into the law of negligence, which called for legislative changes to impose a reasonable burden of responsibility on individuals to take care of themselves and of others, the meeting agreed in principle to develop legislation.
The Ministers agreed to consider the recommendations in light of their own reforms with the onus falling on New South Wales to lead the way due to its significance in the national insurance market.
The review, headed by Justice David Ipp called for:
Forseeability of Risk
- defendants should only be responsible for a risk that is not insignificant rather than far fetched or fanciful risks.
Contributory Negligence
- allowing courts to find that a plaintiff who contributed to his or her own injury can be held 100% responsible.
Public Authorities
- providing a limited defence for public authorities, such as local councils, where they have taken a decision on policy grounds not to perform a specific public function, such as a road inspection.
Mental Harm
- changing negligence law so that plaintiffs who suffer a physical injury can only claim for consequential psychiatric harm if they have suffered a recognised mental illness and not simply because an injury may have led to vague feelings of depression.
Limitations on Legal Costs
- abolishing orders for legal costs when the award of damages is less than $30,000 and limiting legal costs to $2500 in cases where the award of damages is between $30,000 and $50,000.
Caps and Thresholds
- a cap for general damages payouts of $250,000 and thresholds to remove small claims from the system
- a cap for loss of earnings of twice average full time adult ordinary time earnings.
The individual governments will prepare reports on the recommendations to be finalised by the end of October with the next ministerial meeting to be held in November.
Queensland Treasurer Terry Mackenroth announced eligible not-for-profit groups and community organisations are now exempt from stamp duty on public liability insurance, as part of a Budget promise.