Australia roundup

Australia’s enactment of significant legislative curbs on liability claims has had the desired effect, according to coverage in the Sydney Morning Herald last year: Public liability and personal injury writs have nosedived and insurance premiums fallen in the wake of restrictions on people’s right to sue, two new reports have found. Released yesterday, the reports […]

Australia’s enactment of significant legislative curbs on liability claims has had the desired effect, according to coverage in the Sydney Morning Herald last year:

Public liability and personal injury writs have nosedived and insurance premiums fallen in the wake of restrictions on people’s right to sue, two new reports have found.

Released yesterday, the reports show insurance has become more affordable in the past 12 months while the number of people suing councils, government departments and public groups has fallen dramatically….

The Assistant Treasurer, Mal Brough, who released the reports at an Insurance Council of Australia conference, said tough decisions by federal, state and territory governments were behind the falls.

“The Commonwealth, state and territory governments took hard decisions to halt a blowout in unaffordable and frivolous claims,” he said. “This has resulted in real and tangible benefits to the community in the form of more affordable and accessible insurance cover.”

“Cover is more widely available, premiums are coming down and personal responsibility has been restored,” said Insurance council executive director Alan Mason. (“Liability claims take a tumble”, AAP/Sydney Morning Herald, Aug. 12). As if to symbolize the turn in sentiment, the High Court in October, over dissents from two of its members, denied recovery (Vairy and Mulligan, PDF) to two men who in separate incidents had injured themselves diving on the New South Wales coast and sued municipal authorities (Melbourne Herald Sun, undated). More on the trend: Dec. 9, 2003 and May 30, 2004; PoL Apr. 15, 2005.

Not that all the problems have been solved. Bret Walker, SC, former president of the Law Council of Australia, delivering the annual lawyers’ lecture for the St James Ethics Centre, warned that ethical tangles for Oz lawyers are multiplying as law slides into the status of big business; enterprise lawyers are getting too close to their clients, while the rise of large class actions, and of suits backed by professional litigation funders, poses its own perils: “No one who has advised, or appeared, on either of these models or modern litigation could be unaware of the fertile soil they present for conflicts of the most venal kind.” (Richard Ackland, “It’s a dodgy law of nature that says big is better”, Sydney Morning Herald, Oct. 21).

Among Australians keen on steering clear of litigation risk are famed children’s entertainers The Wiggles:

As part of the Wiggles circus, [Paul] Paddick [friendly pirate “Captain Feathersword”] has had to curb his natural exuberance. For example, none of the Wiggles ever touch children. And when they are photographed with children, they always adopt their now-famous “pointy fingers” pose — “so there is no doubting where their hands are”, Paddick explains….The Wiggles team insisted that touching children, however innocently, was inappropriate — and open to the risk of litigation, particularly as the monetary value of the Wiggles brand name rose. (Steve Meacham, “The master of sword play”, Sydney Morning Herald, Dec. 3).

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