Maurice Hayes (Independent)

I do not support the amendment. However, I find it distasteful that members of the medical and legal professions are being denigrated in the House, which is unfair. There are, of course, hucksters and good people in every profession. I am sure there is the same range of human nature and human response in politics. Senator O'Toole's contribution might be considered eloquent but I thought it was tendentious.

Unlike other Members, I have not done the honours course in this but I do not think the issue is simple. One cannot just fill up a simple form, say one has a straightforward broken leg which has cost one a certain amount of money and ask for the cheque to be put in the post. My broken leg and another person's broken leg might be altogether two different things. Let us not hold out the promise to people that everything will be open and shut and simple. I favour a system which reduces the amount of activity that enables quick, easy and equitable settlements to be made where there is no contest of liability. I am not talking about cases where there is admission of liability. The amendment would make this very difficult.

Underlying all of this is a point which concerns some of us. On the one hand, there are the insurance companies or their clients and, on the other, there are individual claimants. When one takes out an insurance policy, one hands oneself over, by and large, to the insurance company, and God help anyone who makes a settlement that breaches the policy. No doubt the PIAB will try to maintain a balance between these two positions. I worry about the possibility that an insurance company might string the matter along, allow the complainant to produce whatever he or she needs to produce and then say, "hard luck, we must start again in the courts". This is something which must by avoided either by way of rules of the organisation or rules of procedure, if not by statute.