Mr ADAMS (4:34 PM) —I was very disappointed with the use by the Minister for Small Business and Tourism of my letter of 17 December 2003 when he waved it around in the House to criticise the Australian Labor Party for not supporting the amendments to the Trade Practices Act in the Senate. The letter did not relate to that act; it actually related to government and opposition sitting down and sorting out the problems of public liability for community groups and to do that without scoring points. The letter was addressed to the Treasurer, and neither the Treasurer nor whoever else he sent it to has responded. The letter has not even been acknowledged. I do not think they understand what I am trying to do. That is a great indictment of them, since it is such an important issue especially in country areas.

Using this act was a cheap shot at the ALP, who oppose the amendments to the Trade Practices Act because they propose to remove an individual's ability to commence proceedings to recover damages for personal injury and death. This means that an individual who has suffered physical harm will be unable to commence legal proceedings to recover damages from a company that has engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct or has made false and misleading representations. This is a hideous invasion of the rights of injured workers, and should not be there, but it has nothing to do with public liability. The alternative is to put a cap on general damages, damages for loss of earning capacity et cetera for personal injury under part V, division 1 in the same manner as the cap on damages payouts for negligence which has, in the most part, been put in place by the states and the territories.

Just for the record, the Ipp report has 61 recommendations, which have been picked up in the most part by the states, and the proposed amendments to the TPA aim to implement only one of those recommendations. The government makes it seem as though these amendments are a central pillar to law reform when in fact the amendment is one in a series of 61—and it has nothing to do with community public liability. This legislation is to do with business and trading entities; it has nothing to do with a group of women sitting in a hall doing embroidery.

So we can do something federally to deal with public liability. We need a nationwide approach. Last month public liability insurers announced record profits: IAG made a half-year profit of $302 million; QBE, a $572 million profit; Promina, a full-year profit of $298 million; and Suncorp an interim profit of $281 million. They are all making a strong underwriting profit on their public liability lines of business.

Mr ADAMS —I agree with the member for Braddon. The ACCC report, released in February, showed that, while personal injury claims costs had fallen by 14 per cent, premiums had continued to rise. Some firms are saying that they will put premiums up by 15 per cent this year.

In September 2002 Labor introduced a private member's bill which would have given the ACCC the ability to ensure that the benefits of state and territory tort reform were passed on to consumers. The government failed to debate this bill; that is why I wanted to have some discussions with the government to try and overcome those problems. The government has control of the ACCC and could help. The government could set up a national fund through which public liability could be developed. It has not done anything along those lines. The government could also look for avenues offshore to find suitable public liability insurers and sponsor a company to be in Australia; it has not.

I condemn the Minister for Small Business and Tourism for doing absolutely nothing about public liability and demand an apology for his accusations against my party about their support for the development of public liability strategies. All the states have tried and the Commonwealth has done nothing. It is no wonder everybody is calling this minister `blame someone else' Hockey.