Insurance industry lobbying in WA has forced the State Government to rewrite legislation to clarify the charging of stamp duty on insurance policies involving offshore risk.

The Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) has welcomed the move and says the decision not to charge duty on the international portion of the policy brings WA into line with all the other states and territories.

Generous in victory, ICA Executive Director Alan Mason congratulated the WA Government rather than suggest they must have been raving mad to try to enforce the tax in the first place. “The decision to apply the changes retrospectively from July 1 1997 clarifies a complex issue for business and consumers in Western Australia.”

Daryl Cameron, ICA’s Group Manager for WA and NT, says the State Government’s commitment to rewriting the insurance provisions of the WA Stamp Act this financial year, with plans for a broader rewrite in July 2006, is commendable.  

“The WA Stamp Act was written 80 years ago and has not been reviewed since 1979,” he said. “This decision means that anomalies like the imposition of stamp duty on overseas risk are removed.”

The lobbying involved insurers, brokers and risk managers, whose peak body ARIMA welcomed the move with a media release headlined: “ARIMA wins WA stamp duty argument”. Well, yes, sort of.