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Victims Services: Ranged Compensable Injuries
Introduction
In 1999 and 2000, significant changes were made to victims compensation legislation, with new compensable injuries introduced, and provisions restricting the eligibility to claim certain injuries. This paper compares the numbers of awards made for ranged compensable injuries under these amendments, aiming to examine the effects of changes to victims compensation legislation.
Under the Victims Support and Rehabilitation Act 1996 (“the Act”), applicants for victims compensation receive an award for specific compensable injuries from the Schedule of Injuries. Victims of sexual assault, domestic violence, or who have sustained a psychological or psychiatric injury may claim compensable injuries in which an award may be made within a specified range (Table 1).
A number of amendments have been made to the Act that made significant changes to a range of provisions. For the purposes of this report, Table 2 sets out some of the key features of amendments to victims compensation legislation since 1999.
The data
Based on figures available in 2002, a report was run from Victims Services database that counted the number of awards for ranged compensable injuries made under the amendments of the Act. Table 3 summarises the results from this report:
The following pie graphs depict the above information.
Notes
It should be noted that the data is based on unaudited figures. The report only counted the number of awards made for a compensable injury where it is the ranked as the first compensable injury – it does not include awards for second or third compensable injuries that may also have been awarded.
Further, the report does not include dismissed claims – the report only indicates the proportion of the number of awards for a particular compensable injury to the total number of claims awarded (not to the total number determined). The report is inclusive of determinations made by Tribunal magistrates and does not record awards for family victims.
Some of the data may be affected by sample sizes and by priorities of the Tribunal (e.g. prioritising claims involving sexual assault and domestic violence).
Discussion
There was significant reduction in the proportion of awards for Category 1: Psychological or psychiatric disorder, from representing over 30% of the number of awards made under the Victims Compensation Act 1996 as amended by legislation introduced in 1998, to around 20% of the number of awards made under current legislation. This reduction would appear to be the result of amendments introduced in May 2000 that restricted the availability of Category 1: Psychological or psychiatric disorder to acts of violence involving armed robbery, abduction or kidnapping. Applicants who have sustained a psychological injury from acts of violence not involving these crimes may still elect to claim Category 2: Psychological or psychiatric disorder, and their eligibility for Approved Counselling is unaffected.
The decrease in the number of awards for Category 1: Psychological or psychiatric disorder can be contrasted to a significant increase in the proportion of awards for the injuries of sexual assault and domestic violence. The proportion of awards for domestic violence increased from 6% to over 15%, and the proportion of awards for sexual assault increased from less than 20% to over 30% of the total number of awards. Under the current legislation, the proportion of awards made for victims of sexual assault and domestic violence is over 45% of the total number of awards.
There was an increase in the proportion of awards for Category 2 Psychological or psychiatric disorder, from less than 1% of claims under the Victims Compensation Act 1996 as amended in 1998, to over 2% under current legislation. In order to receive an award for Category 2 Psychological or psychiatric disorder, it must be established that the injury was severely disabling. The increase may represent an increase in the number of awards made for Category 2 Psychological or psychiatric disorder in comparison with a more restricted number of awards.
Conclusion
When introducing the amendments to victims compensation legislation into Parliament in 2000, it was noted that the intent of the legislation was to direct compensation to those most in need: “to ensure that compensation be granted first and foremost to victims of the more serious violent crimes.” The amendments to the Act did this by restricting eligibility to compensation for psychological injury that was moderately disabling, and by increasing the minimum threshold of statutory compensation. At the same time, the minimum amount payable in relation to the compensable injuries of Domestic violence, Psychological or psychiatric disorder and Sexual Assault was increased, aiming to ensure that those victims would not be disadvantaged because of the increase in the threshold. While the data in this report must be treated with some reservations (see notes above), it does suggest that the amendments of the Act in 2000 are having the effects intended by the government, with a demonstrable increase in the proportion of awards for victims of sexual assault, domestic violence and the most severely effected psychologically.
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