Victoria’s statutory classes chief, James MacKenzie, has had a mixed bag of results to reveal over the past week. The Transport Accident Commission (TAC) has recorded an after-tax profit of $51 million for the financial year ended June 2003. Mr MacKenzie, who chairs both the TAC and the state’s WorkCover Authority, said TAC has also seen a writedown in projected liabilities of $311 million, demonstrating that improving claims outcomes and strong financial management are the key drivers of sustainable success in a volatile economy.

Other key results for the year end included $536.2 million in support services funded for 42,782 clients and Victoria’s lowest financial-year road toll of 368.

Not such good news for the VWC, however. Despite hailing the success of a new claims model and a “renewed focus and concerted effort to build robust links with stakeholders”, Mr MacKenzie still had to report a net loss of $315.9 million.

Citing “unfavourable changes in economic assumptions”, he said the growth in the system’s liabilities are slowing – which means they’re still climbing, but more slowly than before. Premium revenue was $1.69 billion, claims expenses were $1.68 billion, the agents got $124.4 million and total underwriting expenses were $1.8 billion. Investments lost $50 million and underwriting lost $114.2 million.