Page 2935 - Week 10 - Thursday, 15 August 1991
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
When the legislation got to the Senate across the lake, two important amendments were moved. They, firstly, freed up the situation to allow the States to legislate as they saw fit by adopting the model, rather than the Commonwealth attempting, as it has done in the corporations area, to put forward a national uniform Bill. So, each State and Territory is progressively legislating to effect the model, and that is what we are doing today in this chamber.
Mr Speaker, there is an ongoing review of matters at the moment. That review is going on under the aegis of the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General. The issues identified for further examination and discussion around our nation include questions about the right to legal representation in these proceedings, the need for the consent of all parties to obtain consolidation of proceedings, issues of natural justice, and the like. Those matters are partly attended to in our amendment today, Mr Speaker, but there are still some broader comments to make in terms of the Attorney's comment that this law represents "a trend towards the use of alternative dispute resolution".
The first thing is that the Senate, in its wisdom, in the second change it made to the model law, allowed the process to be lawyerised. Lawyers have often been anathema to arbitrators, but the Senate allowed legal representation in arbitration disputes - in fact, foreign legal representation.
We now have the beginnings of a possible expanded industry in terms of the globalisation of legal services within and outside Australia. It means that lawyers can come to those cases - they can come from abroad - and this will encourage the use of Australia, as an honest forum, as a centre of commercial arbitration.
I was at a conference last year with Sir Laurence Street, the former Chief Justice of New South Wales, when he indicated clearly his continuing personal involvement in attempts to set up commercial arbitration in Australia - and in what other place than Sydney, from his point of view - so that Australia can provide a venue for all the great commercial disputes that are going on in our region and elsewhere.
Mr Speaker, I also should acknowledge here the important work that Pat Brazil, the former secretary to the Federal Attorney's department, has done in focusing attention on the issues here and in providing an impetus for Canberra to have the ambition to provide the venue that Sir Laurence Street speaks about. I personally believe, as I have said before in this house, that Canberra, this national capital, could become the centre of commercial arbitration, mediation, conciliation and dispute resolution for this hemisphere.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .