Speeches and grabs
"The Politics, purpose and reform of the law of negligence", by the Hon Justice David Ipp, 17 May 2007
"The schemes for the measure of damages as provided by the Workers Compensation Act and the Motor Accidents Compensation Act are far removed from a balanced system of objective criteria, the achievement of which might be thought desirable. Essentially, these schemes constitute a table of maims, a system with which ancient and medieval life was familiar, but which disappeared for hundreds of years from civilised societies. It is not something that developed legal systems based on the common law have generally accepted, largely because it has no regard to the circumstances of the individual case. It does not cater for the fact that, for example, the loss of a leg may mean far more to a ballerina than a computer operator." Read Justice Ipp's speech
"A fair go for injured people" campaign launch, by Michael Slattery QC, Tuesday, 19 September 2006
"Today, and in the weeks and months to follow, we will draw attention relentlessly to bad laws, drafted in haste, which have benefited none but the large insurance companies...Steadily increasing numbers of people have been denied proper compensation, or experienced first hand the frustration and suffering of friends and family. The burden of caring for injured people has been shifted silently from insurance companies onto the injured, as well as their parents, spouses or children who must help care for them. The burden has been shifted from insurers onto our already overstretched public health care system."
Alan Jones, the Alan Jones Show, 2GB, 14 November 2006
"We were told in 2002, by the Daily Telegraph and Bob Carr, that the insurance crisis justified the removal of fair compensation for people injured by the negligence of others. We were fooled by headlines, or you were, and the Carr Government."
The Hon J J Spigelman, Chief Justice of New South Wales
The new liability structure in Australia, an address by the Hon J J Spigelman AC, Chief Justice of New South Wales Swiss Re Liability Conference, 14 September 2004
"These disparate processes created inexplicable and unjustified variations in the rules which applied. Quite different compensation was available depending on whether injury occurred in a car or in a car park or at work or on an operating table or in a public swimming pool or in a supermarket. The sense of fairness which is essential to the effective operation of the system had been attenuated."
