Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

What I said was that there is no evidence that I'm aware of that anyone has produced that premiums will increase for small businesses. It is not that I've produced evidence that it will not happen; what I'm saying is that I'm not aware of anyone producing evidence that it will. As I say, we have taken steps within the legislation to ensure that these provisions cannot be abused. The way this costs regime would work is that applicants can be ordered to pay the costs of a respondent if they're unsuccessful in their claim under these circumstances: first of all, if the court is satisfied that the applicant instituted the proceedings vexatiously or without reasonable cause; secondly, if the court is satisfied that the applicant's unreasonable act or omission caused the other party to incur the costs; or, thirdly—and all of these need to apply—the other party is a respondent who was successful, meaning that if the school or the small business or whoever had the claim brought against them won, if that group doesn't have a significant power advantage over the applicant and if that group doesn't have significant financial or other resources relative to the applicant. So, if we're talking about a very small business—a mum-and-dad type operation—the court will need to take into account whether they actually had significant financial or other resources relative to the applicant.