05/005/2026

Thousands of victims of negligence risk losing the right to sue for compensation if the Federal Parliament bows to pressure from the insurance industry to restrict claims.

A Federal Government inquiry will this week start hearings into the pricing of insurance products for small businesses, not-for-profit and community organisations.

“Insurers are advocating for significant changes to civil liability laws which will mean that people who have been injured will not be able to receive the support they need to re-build their lives. However, there is no data to support these proposals,” said Australian Lawyers Alliance (ALA) National President Ian Murray.

Mr Murray said while affordable insurance for small businesses and community organisations was essential, reducing the compensation rights of people who have been injured was not the solution to rising premiums.

“Before any further reform is considered, we need transparency about what is actually driving insurance premium increases. Reforms must be based on evidence and must not come at the expense of fairness for injured Australians.’’

Existing civil liability laws protect and compensate victims of negligence in public places, including public pools, festivals, amusement parks and some workplaces, but there are serious fears that proposed changes could remove these rights and block victims seeking compensation.

Mother Patrizia Cassaniti, whose 18-year-old son Christopher was crushed when a nine-storey scaffold, which had been tampered with in breach of safety protocols, collapsed on a building site, is fighting on behalf of victims and their families to stop the Federal Government recommending that states restrict claims.

Patrizia was re-traumatised by the drawn-out legal process to achieve compensation for the agony her family suffered, but at least the law existed to allow her to take legal action.

“The reality is when a worker goes to work and never comes home, a family’s life is shattered in an instant. Everything changes with one phone call, one knock at the door, one moment that divides life into before and after,” Patrizia said. “You wake up every day replaying the moment your world fell apart.”

“My message to the politicians is to please stop and reflect on what families go through. Imagine losing your child. Imagine losing your husband, your wife, your parent. Imagine knowing that their death should never have happened.’’

The Australian Lawyers Alliance, a national association of lawyers, academics and other professionals dedicated to protecting and promoting access to justice and equality before the law for all individuals, will appear in the Parliamentary hearing on Thursday this week.

Mr Murray said the ALA would welcome the opportunity to work together with insurers on ways to make the compensation system more efficient to ease the burden on victims and reduce costs. “What we need is common sense solutions and not changes to laws where victims are punished.”

The ALA will caution at the hearing that limiting access to compensation would not remove costs but instead shift them onto already stretched public systems such as Medicare, Centrelink and the NDIS and onto injured people and their families.

“You don’t eliminate the cost of injury by restricting compensation, you simply move it elsewhere,” Mr Murray said. “That means more pressure on taxpayers and public services, at a time when systems like the NDIS are already under significant strain.”

The ALA also pointed to lessons from past reforms following the early 2000s “insurance crisis”, which saw governments reduce the rights of injured people.

“Those changes created a patchwork of laws that weakened protections for injured Australians, yet there is little evidence they delivered long-term reductions in premiums,” Mr Murray said. “History shows that cutting rights is not an effective or sustainable solution.”

The ALA emphasised that access to compensation is already limited, with thresholds and caps preventing some injured people from receiving fair compensation.

“Many Australians are already excluded from compensation despite suffering real harm. Further restrictions risk leaving more people without the support they need or pushing the cost onto government funded schemes,” said Ian.

“We are very willing to work constructively with insurers, governments and other stakeholders to identify solutions that improve outcomes for both policyholders and injured people. However, we are adamant that any reforms must be evidence-based and must not erode the rights of injured people.”