With all the disputes going on over who’s to blame for the public liability crisis and what to do about it, people are beginning to wonder if a viable across-the-board solution is really possible.

Key parties involved in the public liability debate are still split on how to tackle the problem, with state government leaders bickering over suggested reforms and the insurance industry and lawyers still blaming each other for the current crisis. Although it has to be said, at this stage it’s insurers 3, lawyers 1. But the legal eagles have some powerful players in the wings.

Some state attorneys-general have argued that general tort reform could limit the ability of individuals to seek compensation for personal injury damages and may boost insurance companies’ profits rather than solve the public liability crisis.

But the industry has its own unlikely champion in NSW Premier Bob Carr. Late last week Mr Carr said that if the states want to succeed in tackling the public liability problem, they have to stand up to lawyers who lobby them. 

“I think the other states have got to understand here the lawyers will press them [not to reform tort law]… but you won’t drive down the cost of insurance if you give in,” Mr Carr said. “We’ve withstood pressure from the legal profession when it’s come to workers’ compensation, medical indemnity, and greenslips [CTP] reform. The same has got to happen here.”       

ICA got in a few high-scoring free kicks with a media release last week claiming lawyers are deliberately ignoring the success of tort reforms in reducing the cost of both CTP and workers’ comp. ICA Executive Director Alan Mason said that over the past 10 years, tort reform to both privately and publicly underwritten CTP and workers’ compensation schemes, in particular to the calculation of damages, “has been successful in controlling the cost of claims and increases in premiums”.

“The community might ask whether the fact that lawyers’ source of incomes in these two classes of business has been curtailed is related to their strong opposition to similar reforms in public liability,” Mr Mason said.

Victorian Premier Steve Bracks said he is not convinced that tort law reform will see reduced premiums. “I think state attorneys-general are clearly saying, and I support this, that unless you get a corresponding reduction in premiums, why go through this process?” he said.

Another uncharacteristic show of support for the industry’s viewpoint came from Australian Financial Review, which dismissed the lawyers’ anti-reform arguments as “semantic quibbles”. In an editorial last Friday, the AFR said it was “ludicrous to suggest they should sink the case for reform of both tort law and the insurance industry itself.”

In his usual morning slot on Channel Nine’s Today Show program, influential Sydney radio commentator Alan Jones refrained from blaming either the insurance industry or lawyers, instead urging governments to “get off their backsides”.