Viable contributions
In this paper last week, Senator Nita Green chastised me over my strong support of and efforts to secure a Northern Australia Reinsurance Pool. Senator Green has not made a single valuable contribution to resolving the insurance crisis facing Far North Queensland. She was parachuted into our region and has served only one purpose ever since—to play the politics at every opportunity.
Instead of providing a solution or helping resolve the remaining challenges the scheme faces, it appears Senator Green is intent on seeing it fail.
If anyone ought to apologise to the FNQ community it’s Senator Green, for undermining the scheme and for her utterly useless contributions during the Committees’ inquiry last week.
Other committee members made valuable contributions and asked important questions.
But rather than trying to find workable solutions and tweaks to the scheme to ensure the delivery of important premium savings to our communities. Senator Green chose to continually undermine the scheme and score cheap political points.
In stark contrast, I have continually fought for a solution since the insurance problem manifested around 2010. I first put forward a proposal for a reinsurance pool to former Treasurer Wayne Swan back in 2011 and it was rejected by the then Labor Government.
Earlier this year an opportunity presented itself and I was able to successfully negotiate the introduction of the scheme which occurred in May. It was supported by both sides of politics and the Albanese Government remains committed to its implementation.
During last weeks’ hearings, 80 per cent of all insurance companies were represented, along with the Insurance Council of Australia and consumer insurance advocacy representatives, all agreed the pool is critical to reducing insurance premiums in our region. If Senator
Green wasn’t so fixated on securing the scheme’s demise, perhaps she would have noticed the universal support for the scheme.
While there remains a few hurdles and things have taken longer than we initially anticipated, the fact remains we are moving in the right direction. With a major insurer intending to join the scheme in January and others suggesting the middle of next year—we are closer than we have ever been to a tangible solution to the insurance crisis.
I will continue to do everything that I can to deliver the best possible version of the scheme for our communities. In the meantime, I encourage readers to ignore the politically motivated musing of the scheme’s detractors.