Federal Assistant Treasurer Mal Brough says the triple taxation of insurance policies in Australia is “appalling”.

“Every cent of business insurance taxes goes to the states,” he told a Sydney liability conference last week. “We need to keep the pressure up, quite frankly.”

Mr Brough says state governments “love insurance taxes. It worries me greatly that they’ve put the GST on top of stamp duty.”

He says there is room for the Federal Government to do more on insurance taxes, but “I don’t underestimate the challenge of removing them”.

Urging insurers to stand up to plaintiff lawyers’ confusing claims about profitability, he says the insurers have to be “more broad” in the media outlets they use.

“The press the average bloke reads is the weekly suburban paper, not the financial press where you’re basically preaching to the converted.”

“It is hard yards, but you have to put yourself in a good position to fight these stories. You need to win the public debate.”