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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2015-06-16 Daily Xml
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Motor Accident Commission

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:49): What mechanism will the Treasurer put in place to make sure that consumers in South Australia are protected from the rampant increases in CTP premiums that have been experienced in other states where they have privatised their equivalent of the Motor Accident Commission?

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens—Treasurer, Minister for Finance, Minister for State Development, Minister for Mineral Resources and Energy, Minister for Small Business) (14:50): We will have an industry-specific regulator who will be independent, and that industry-specific regulator, with competition—unlike the ETSA privatisation that privatised a monopoly. We are not giving the Motor Accident Commission to another monopoly, we are opening it up to a contestable market where there are many operators in the market, with a transition period, and also having an industry-specific regulator.

I note that the Leader of the Opposition says that he will be opposing these reforms in the media and he says that he won't be supporting any legislation. I would ask the opposition to reconsider that. If they want to protect motorists, we need to have a legislated, independent, industry-specific regulator; that is the best way to protect motorists, with a competitive market.

Ms Chapman: We didn't have one on Gillman.

The SPEAKER: The deputy leader is warned for the second and final time.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: I understand that the Leader of the Opposition prefers the model of government monopoly with a government guarantee.

Mr GARDNER: Point of order: No. 98, debate, making it up, rhetoric, verballing—take your pick.

The SPEAKER: I think the member for Morialta could frame his points of order a little more elegantly and make them more persuasive. The Treasurer.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: We have engaged private consultants PricewaterhouseCoopers—

Mr Marshall: Table the advice.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: The Leader of the Opposition wants me to table the advice in the middle of a commercial process.

Ms Chapman: Here we go!

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: 'Here we go!' Okay. Again—

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The deputy leader is very close to leaving us.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: You can imagine across the boardrooms of South Australia listening to this, listening to the opposition say we should release our independent advice in the middle of a tender process. I mean, really? It just shows you the lack of sympathy that they have not only for the people who will be paying compulsory third-party premiums but for those people who are tendering. Of course, process is important. We need to go through this process and make sure that there is good probity. We can't be releasing advice before we finish the process.

Mr Pisoni interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Unley, if he utters a word out of order, will be leaving question time; he should have gone then. The Treasurer.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: We want to have a private sector model that includes a multiprovider market with a set number of eligible providers for the first three years, and we will limit the increases to CPI-like increases. We want premium prices to be fixed, with CPI-like increases over the next three years while we have a smooth transition for motorists and, of course, the participants. Then we want to transition to a fully contestable model from year 4. The reason we do that is that we have learnt from the mistakes in New South Wales and Queensland. We have looked and spoken to those treasurers.

We have had our independent commercial advisers give us the advice about how to do this properly. The next steps are to first conduct market soundings with the potential CTP insurers, and I can assure members that the noises that they are making opposite are scaring the market, because they cannot believe that a conservative party would do this to the free market. We will then go to undertake expressions of interest, then a request for tender process. It will be followed then by a licensing process, appoint the new CTP insurance providers and prepare them for motorists by 1 July  2016, as we announced in the last budget.

It is a transparent process. It is a process to protect motorists, on top of already large decreases that they have had to their compulsory third-party premiums already over the last two years. It's a good process. It gives South Australians choice, choice to be able to bundle their insurance policies, giving families the choice about where they take their insurance. Remember this: we compel every single motorist to have compulsory third-party premiums. Why can't we give them some choice?

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