Ms BURNET – Minister, I’m interested in understanding the profile of MAIB claimants and what proportion of claimants received daily care payments, housekeeping payments, loss of income allowances, attendant care and other services. Do you have that information?
Mr ABETZ – I don’t have that in my back pocket. Hopefully, the CEO might have it in a folder somewhere, either here or elsewhere.
Mr KINGSTON – At a broad level, lifetime care clients, which are the ones that are catastrophically injured and require support for the rest of their lives, which can be decades ahead: after 33 years of operation of that scheme, so it started in the early 1990s, we’ve got 107 clients in that Future Care scheme. They have access to everything they need, medical care and all the other benefits we pay for the rest of their life.
In terms of our profile of other claimants, nearly 80 per cent, 70‑80 per cent of our claims are usually resolved and people are back to their pre‑injury health state within a year or two. They cost less than $20,000 on average. They’re actually quite low-cost claims. We then have about a bit over 19 per cent which goes somewhere in between those. They can have a whole range from needing a few years to being with us for many years.
Our claims don’t close unless they’re resolved by common law or, in the case of our Future Care clients, they pass away, so people are with us forever. They have availability to all our benefits that we offer at the time that they need it. We don’t break down for each client how much housekeeping they’ve got or how much attendant care. We just provide them the care that they need from there.
We do have a breakdown of claims costs which I can give you across the portfolio. I’m just trying to bring it up. In terms ‑ I probably won’t need to go through all of them, but you mentioned attended care, so attended care costs – I’m trying to find that one, excuse me – if the ones you mentioned in terms of disability allowance, which is their offset for their income, in 2023‑24 we paid $8.5 million, which was 10 per cent of our portfolio of payments. All the rest, other than hospital fees, which is 12.1 per cent, go down to probably just a few percent of the portfolio from there. They are quite small, but it depends on what the person needs at the time, we provide.
Ms BURNET – Is it possible to have that report tabled?
Mr KINGSTON – We can definitely bring something back that tries to break it down more for you.
Ms BURNET – Do I need to take that on notice, Chair?
CHAIR – If you just provide that as a question that the minister will take on notice, and they’ll take it on notice.
Ms BURNET – Are you seeing much of a variety of how that’s changing, like are there greater cost pressures in particular areas?
Mr KINGSTON – The biggest area is our attendant care, because for our lifetime care clients that makes up 70‑80 per cent of the cost of those claims, and that has been experiencing significant price pressure driven largely by NDIS money coming into the scheme and people using NDIS money to purchase those services. That had a step increase about 18 months ago, or nearly two years ago now, of 10.5 per cent, just to keep pace over and above our normal indexation. We index our payments by way to your CPI each year, so that’s had a very significant increase.
Most of our other costs are largely going up by a way to your CPI, so we’re not seeing way too much pressure. On hospital costs, we’ve got a specific agreement with the health service where we pay a specific bed day rate. We don’t pay for individual services, we just pay a bed day rate for any of our clients who are in hospital for that day, and they get all the services that they need.
We’ve already got that set, and that isn’t increasing as much because we’ve already got that agreed directly with them.
Ms BURNET – To the state health department?
Mr KINGSTON – To the state health system.
Ms BURNET – Are there significant demographic clusters of those who require higher levels of support or suffer more severe injury due to road incidents, and are these demographic clusters typically fairly consistent from year to year?
Mr ABETZ – In demographics, I’m not sure on that. Motorcycle riders, if that’s a demographic – I don’t know if that’s what you’re referring to.
Mr BALCOMBE – I might have a little intro and then throw to the CEO, but there’s two elements. Certainly, motorcycle riders have many more road accidents than people in standard cars.
Mr ABETZ – That’s on a proportionate basis.
Mr BALCOMBE – On a proportionate basis, so about three times more on average.
Mr KINGSTON – Yes, they’re 3 per cent of the registered vehicle fleet and 19 per cent of fatalities and serious injuries.
Mr BALCOMBE – Yes, so they have a higher incidence. From a demographic perspective, probably the only other thing I’d say before opening up to Paul is that we see a higher incidence of serious road trauma on rural roads because of the condition of the roads. They’re windy, they’re bendy – less patrolled, probably, so people take higher risks on those and unfortunately, those risks manifest. We don’t have the actual direct deep detail on this. You could argue that perhaps, more rural and regional areas have a greater incidence of injury based on that.
Ms BURNET – The follow up question is do you target your education to those particular more vulnerable road users?
Mr KINGSTON – I can answer from the Road Safety Advisory Council, which we fund and I sit on, is where the education and enforcement component comes from. In that we definitely target those that are more proportionately overrepresented in serious injury.
Young men, 18 to 24, has always been a big disproportionate representative. We have the Real Mates Campaign, which has run for over a decade which has been highly successful. It actually reduced the number of fatalities and serious injuries for Tasmanian young men by nearly 50 per cent after the 10 years of running that. Obviously, there’s other societal developments where it’s less acceptable to drink drive.
Then, with each program that we do through there, we go through the road safety stats. If there’s anything popping up that’s new or becoming more of an issue. Drug driving is becoming more prevalent and being detected more by police. We’re just at the moment looking through the RSAC (Road Safety Advisory Council) to look at some sort driving under the influence of drugs as a new campaign. That’s actually across all generations, not just young that’s showing up. Generally, the trend isn’t changing overly dramatically. The areas that are problems are still problems. Each year the Road Safety Advisory Council has a campaign, a work plan that tries to address the key areas either in that year over two or three‑year period.
Ms BURNET – I want to follow up on the targeted campaign. You talked about driving under the influence of drugs. Would that also look at prescription medications, which I imagine would have impact on road safety and capacity?
Mr ABETZ – Yes, I understand that doesn’t necessarily fall within the bailiwick of the MAIB. It falls more within policing. As I understand it, even if you’re on prescription drugs, if it impacts your driving ability or capacity, then you would be in breach of the law.
Ms BURNET – It was really about the advertising campaign and the campaign targeting it.
Mr ABETZ – Sorry, apologies.
Mr KINGSTON – Again, it’s probably more RSAC rather than MAIB, but obviously I chair the education and enforcement subcommittee.
There’s always an issue with what message you give in education campaigns around road safety. It’s a very difficult space. People don’t listen; they switch off pretty easily. I think the surveys we do on driving perception, something like 70-80 per cent of people think they’re better than the average driver, which statistically doesn’t add up. Trying to sell a message is very difficult to get across.
What we tend to try to do is to give people a call to action at the end of our campaign so we want them to do something different. We haven’t got to the absolute detail of what will be in there. Generally, with those sorts of ads, if you watch the ‘Real Mates’ ads and others, it’s about ‘don’t do something silly when you’ve been under the influence of something’, so it’s probably going to be more a generic message about not taking drugs that could interfere with your driving. Whether they be legal or illicit, who cares? It’s the same impact.
So, yes, I think it will be more general. We haven’t got to the point of doing it yet, but to try to do an ad that hits everything, you’ll probably lose the people before you get to the second concept. So, we tend to go to the behaviour change we want which is, don’t drive impaired, regardless of what drug it is.
Ms BURNET – If you’ll indulge me, minister, because I imagine it’s more of a road safety taskforce question as well, I’ve certainly asked questions in parliament or spoken with you in relation to having campaigns around schools and making schools safer. We’ve had a number of incidents and at least one death around a school in the last 12 months. I’m wondering if there’s there is that capacity to look at driver behaviour and educate around schools, or even have an exclusion zone for vehicles?
Mr KINGSTON – RSAC again, it’s not MAIB, has run the ‘Love 40’ campaign which has got very good recall. At the end of each of the campaigns we do market research to see. It gets very good recall and is liked. The problem you’ve just alluded to is it doesn’t always lead to behaviour change. The difficult thing is people’s attitude to how they drive is reinforced by every time they drive and aren’t in an accident, and because that’s most people, most days, they tend to get more casual.
I understand the ‘Love 40’ one is due to be redone. I don’t know if you saw the most recent campaign that was launched earlier this year. We’ve actually been using schoolchildren in there to actually present and that seemed to have more of an impact because what your child might think of your behaviour in the car might wake you to doing the right thing if you’re a parent.
They’re looking at different ways of getting different characters to try to sell the message. The message doesn’t change, but trying to get people to take notice of that. I think during the release of that campaign, they had Richie Porte, whose son is back in primary school up in the north, actually come out and support that campaign. I think it’s about finding ways to engage people and make them listen. The ‘Love 40’ has been one of our more recognised, I think, campaigns. Leading to behaviour change, I think that’s a long‑term ‑ you’ve just got to be persistent and keep putting the message out there, I think is the answer.
Ms BURNET – Mr Bayley asked a question last year about divestment from fossil fuels companies and other investments which have had that longer-term risk profile. Are you any closer to moving towards divesting?
Mr BALCOMBE – I wasn’t sure it was about divestment. I think the question was more about what are we doing for an ESG perspective. He mentioned that part to me, I can’t recall the question in that time.
Ms BURNET – I think there might have been just one mention of divestment, but that’s okay.
Mr BALCOMBE – I suppose there’re a couple of aspects there. Certainly, from a point of view of ESG, it’s something that the business is focused on. We’re continuing to learn about it. I suppose from a couple of aspects of that is that each year we review our specific investments and our specific investment managers. We look at the investment and what that’s doing from an ESG perspective. We also look at that investment manager and how they are performing from an ESG perspective – things like modern slavery, where they operate, all those sorts of elements. Now, in the fund manager space, that is an area that is under development. We have a couple of fund managers that do very, very well and there’re probably some other fund managers that are still in in learning on that.
As regards our portfolio, one of the things about our portfolio is that we have to take a broad cross-section, so it’s about diversification. Take, for instance, we invested about 10 per cent of our portfolio, off the top of my head, in the Australian equities market. Australian equities have a big exposure to the resources sector, so from an ESG perspective it probably doesn’t tick the box. The issue is that that index we invest in in the Australian stock market index has made about 25 per cent in the last 12 months, so if we excise yourself from that, we’ve got to understand where else we’re going to make that sort of money from. It’s about that diversification.
There is a second element where we do have some funds that we have invested in. One is called the SUSI Global Energy Transition Fund. Basically it’s about investing in investments that will decarbonise energy production and increase energy efficiency. Another fund is called the SDCL Green Energy Solutions Fund and that’s looking at aggregating small and medium-sized green energy solutions in the digital, healthcare, commercial, industrial, property and transport sections across Europe and the UK. It’s burgeoning opportunity and something that we continue to have a focus on.
Ms BURNET – In relation to the data breach of HL Ebsworth in February 2023, was MAIB exposed to that breach?
Mr BALCOMBE – Yes, we were. HWL Ebsworth are on our panel. What happened is that they had a data breach and some of our client detail was discovered during that data breach. We undertook a very comprehensive process of that. We were obviously most upset with the firm involved. I suppose there were a couple of layers to that. They were very defensive about their position so we had to really get on the front foot to find out exactly what was happening and we engaged some specialist providers to help us with that. We were able to find all the clients who were impacted and we wrote to or called them and got in contact with them. I suppose one of the challenges around cyber in general is it’s not only our own systems, it’s all the systems within our providers. We continue to seek assurances about that. To some extent, unfortunately with cyber incidents, it’s as much about not if, but when, but we took all opportunity to mitigate all the risks of that. Certainly, we made the clients who were impacted the centre of that and very much got on the front foot. Paul, I don’t know whether you’ve got anything to add.
Mr KINGSTON – We actually employed Cyber CX, a leading advisor in cybersecurity in Australia. We got them to do their own review of the data that had been released because we were struggling to get open communication from HWE at that stage. HWE gave us their review which identified all our clients who had been affected. We had 39 clients affected. We wrote to each one and gave them the contact details of the team HWE had set up or contacts for them to see where it went further. Most CTP schemes across Australia were affected. They’re a big law firm that has representation across Australia. We only had a couple of clients come back to us. We offered if we could do anything to help. A couple came back worried about the impact on them personally and we sent them back to HWE but also gave them everything that we had, which was fairly limited. We put HWE on hold in terms of new clients until they could prove to us that they’d taken appropriate steps to protect our clients going forward. That was the broad outcome of the incident for us.
Ms BURNET – I want to continue asking questions around the data breach. I’m curious to know how that was reported to the minister at the time and also how that was recorded on the public record.
Mr BALCOMBE – I most certainly recall that we wrote to the minister and the government at the time.
Mr KINGSTON – We reported it to Premier and Cabinet, now central IT management of government office. I forget their name but we rang them because we knew other government agencies had also been hit. We registered our interest with them and also utilised their resources because they were coordinating a whole-of-government response and we’re a very small entity so we were keen to utilise the expertise from that section. Any stats we had without names, because we didn’t let personal information go any further, we provided to them. It was aggregated up and I understand that they reported it through to the minister, but we didn’t go direct, it was us through the central IT coordination of Premier and Cabinet.
Ms BURNET – And the public? Any sort of public notification? Was it in an annual report at that time?
Mr BALCOMBE – I think it was a compliance obligation that we had to report it through to some federal body, but I can’t recall.
Mr KINGSTON – Which was done by HWE on our behalf. They actually did all the requirements to comply with federal announcements. They did that. They gave us the opportunity of doing it ourselves. Quite frankly, at that stage we didn’t have enough information to do so. That would have been the way it was registered publicly as to what the report was.
Ms BURNET – Okay, thank you. Just in relation to quad bikes, how many claims in respect of registered and insured vehicles like ATVs and quad bikes covered by MAIB have been made in the past year and over the past five years for accidents relating to those vehicles?
Mr KINGSTON – All we’ve got is motorcycle stats. We don’t actually break down to quad bikes. They’re registered in one of our 23 categories, which is run by the motor registry, and quad bike isn’t separate – it can go into a few categories. We don’t get that data broken down to quad bikes.
Most of the quad bike incidents we’ve had have been farm related, which means they go to WorkCover first. Under our legislation, the WHS and the WorkCover insurance responds first. They then have recovery rights on us. So, we haven’t got specific quad bike data, only motorcycles, and with motorcycle data, all categories are increasing significantly.
Ms BURNET – I see, but ATVs are of major concern, aren’t they, for deaths and injury?
Mr KINGSTON – Largely from the WorkCover perspective, more than us. We don’t actually have a significant amount of claims that come through on it. WorkCover have been running quite a few campaigns on how to have better certification and requirements around the makes and models. They’ve run more that campaign because it’s largely farm based.
We do, as the minister said, go to Campbell Town, Yolla, Scottsdale and a lot of those regional high schools to provide free training to kids because we know they’re already riding on them. Most of those then go through WorkCover because it’s on working farm. That doesn’t come to us first up. We may end up paying, but we’re not managing the claim, so we’re sort of a bit in the dark on exactly what those numbers are.
Ms BURNET – I’ll just ask a general question. Ideally, there are no injuries and trauma or deaths from road accidents, so I was just wondering how you’re trying to get there. I know you’ve talked about the education programs, but in a broad way, how do you expect that that might be addressed?
Mr ABETZ – From the MAIB, it is very much through the monies they expend in education. From a holistic government point of view, that includes putting up what are disrespectfully referred to as the ‘cheese graters’ along the Midland Highway – the wire ropes that are designed to keep traffic apart – road design and ongoing monitoring of speed limits by the transport commissioner as to what is an appropriate speed limit. You and I recently were up at the Leith intersection with the two local mayors.
Ms BURNET – Leith, Tasmania.
Mr ABETZ – Not that there’s another place. I shouldn’t be laughing; I’ll be facing that at 8.30 tomorrow morning. It’s a holistic approach, starting with the foundation’s investment in schools, also with our partnership with the RACT with learner driver education for grade 9. If you like, there are a lot of irons in the fire at the moment. We are straying a bit from the MAIB GBE scrutiny, but that said, there’s a fair dividend from MAIB to the RSAC, which helps guide and direct a lot of the road safety initiatives that the government undertakes.
Ms BURNET – What do you envisage the headwinds might be for MAIB?
Mr ABETZ – There’s a good question. Ultimately, it’s the five, and somebody can remind me of what all the five are, but speed clearly is the number one.
Mr KINGSTON – Speed and inattention. I personally think, and RSAC has done quite a bit of work on this – I know that the chair, Scott Tilyard, is very focused on speeding and inattention, but people’s attitudes on the road seem to be the problem. Across Australia, every jurisdiction has seen a steady increase in the crash rate post-COVID. People on the road are obviously demonstrating behaviour that they don’t think the rules apply to them.
Ms BURNET – But for the organisation?
Mr KINGSTON – Sorry, for the organisation.
Mr BALCOMBE – I suppose there’s a couple of things. One of the things we as a business have to contemplate is a catastrophic incident, so a model bus crash or something like that. We take reinsurance from the global market to insure for that. Basically, on all claims to two thresholds – either to $7.5 million or $10 million, we cover the first, and there are two tranches in our reinsurance portfolio. We cover the first $7.5 million or $10 million and then we are covered by reinsurance.
The challenge is that that market is getting tighter and tighter, and more expensive. Paul did a very good job. He goes to London and Singapore annually to do a reinsurance trip, and to Sydney. We write some through the Australian market too. That is getting difficult to access, and I suppose the issue around that too is our own claims history. We have a couple of very significant claims that are on foot where the reinsurers are paying for that.
There are potential headwinds there – continued access to provider markets and supported accommodation providers in particular. We’ve had a long and enduring partnership –
CHAIR -I hate to be rude, but the time being 5.30 p.m., the time for scrutiny has expired. Thank you to the minister and others for your attendance.
