Citizens' juries, liquid democracy and legislative reform of Australian compulsory insurance schemes for injury compensation after motor vehicle accidents

In 2017/2018 the Australian Capital Territory held its first citizens' jury to deliberate changes to the Territory's Compulsory Third Party (CTP) insurance scheme, for injury compensation after motor vehicle accidents. Such citizens' juries were designed to aid the transition to next-generation parliamentary processes (such as liquid democracy - citizen direct electronic voting on laws or individual transfer of their vote to respected politicians) by enabling a variety of key stakeholders and interests to be actively represented in the process of statutory development. In effect such a process is a democratic alternative to the current model of corporate lobbyists covertly influencing the legislative process. This column investigates how the citizens' jury chose one from four proposed CTP models. It then critiques how, following the jury's recommendation, the Australian Capital Territory Government introduced the Motor Accidents Injuries Bill 2018 (ACT). Once enacted, this is designed to create a “no-fault” expedited scheme, but on our analysis, at the cost of certain adverse outcomes. These include greatly reducing an injured person's entitlements to fair compensation, a “whole person impairment threshold” that limits entitlements to treatment and care, wage loss and compensation for pain and suffering, removing the right to compensation for gratuitous care, and giving the insurance companies unfettered power over the provision of entitlements.