People who get injured at sport or being hit by vehicles from skateboards to trucks would no longer be eligible for criminal-injuries compensation under legislation introduced in the ACT Legislative Assembly yesterday.
The Attorney-General, Terry Connolly, said yesterday that the purpose of criminal-injuries was to compensate against violent crime. It was not for sports injuries or people being hit by cycles, as the Supreme Court had found in recent cases.
The new legislation would enable the Minister to declare categories of events that were not compensible, subject to disallowance. Cars, skateboards, sport and dog bites would not be compensible; these sorts of matters were better treated with insurance, civil damages or social security.
Generally, there would be a requirement that someone be prosecuted, though there would be exceptions where the judge found it just and equitable.
The Assembly adopted a report recommending that a citizen’s right of reply be available to people or corporations aggrieved by things said by Members in the Assembly.
It would follow the Senate system and enable citizens’ replies to be incorporated in Hansard.
David Lamont (Lab) said it he hoped it would not make members think they could be less responsible in casting innuendoes because people had a right of reply. This was a less than adequate reply to those who might be slurred, but the only one available to the Assembly.
The Territory Plan had become law, the Minister for Environment, land and Planning, Bill Wood, said yesterday. The six required sitting days had passed on Wednesday without any objections. A thousand copies would be printed and its would be gazetted as soon as possible.
After a question from Michael Moore (Ind) Mr Wood acknowledged that $300,000 extra would have been recouped for the community from Section 22 in Torrens Street, Braddon, if betterment had been charged at 100 per cent of the increased value obtained through the change in purpose from single-density to medium-density.
Mr Moore said on Wednesday that the community was not getting a proper return on its assets when land uses were changed.
He was introducing a Bill to levy 100 betterment on land-use changes.
Betterment is the charge levied against a leaseholder in return for a change of purpose in the lease in recognition of its changed value from the old use to the new. Under present law a remission of up to 50 per cent is available depending on the age of the old lease.
Mr Moore said four major independent and parliamentary inquiries had recommended a return stricter administration of leasehold with levies of 100 per cent of the increase in the market value of a lease that is created by a change in permissible land use.
However, successive Commonwealth and ACT Governments had ignored the recommendations and had gone in the other direction, to the detriment of the community.
The Minister for Sport, Wayne Berry, ruled out water-skiing on Lake Ginninderra, acknowledging there would always be a shortage of water sites for water-skiing in the ACT.
Mr Connolly told Helen Szuty (Ind) that the Government was looking at ways to get some public libraries to open on Sundays. He hoped that enterprise bargaining would enable a trade-off with the union to contain costs. He could not say when it would happen.