Page 3090 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 10 September 1991
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Melbourne Building. It used to sit at night. It was very accessible. But it was not very popular with lawyers and its popularity with the public gradually dropped off. But that was a great and noble effort during the period when we tried it out in the late 1970s.
I think the Attorney should take care in looking at those recommendations because they are looked at very keenly by the welfare rights lobby and other socially minded lawyers in the Territory. People often say that debt collecting agencies line up at the Small Claims Court and, for very little expenditure, use the processes of that court for many, many recovery actions. That situation has been adjusted through amendments, and it needs to be looked at from time to time to ensure that we are getting a user-pays operation. But, of course, in any event, those debt recovery agencies are shunting those charges back onto the often impoverished defendant in those proceedings. So, I think the Attorney should be careful, because they try everything on new Attorneys, I have found, and I would not be surprised if they came to the Attorney with this one also. Mr Speaker, I saw Mr Connolly roll his eyebrows; I was not being patronising.
The other provisions are tidying up provisions in relation to fees that the Minister can determine in the civil jurisdiction of the Magistrates Court. That also is useful; it acknowledges the responsibilities for people in need - impoverished litigants. That is to be commended as well. The Rally supports these amendments.
MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General, Minister for Housing and Community Services and Minister for Urban Services) (8.17), in reply: Mr Speaker, again I thank the members who have made a contribution to this debate - Mr Stefaniak and Mr Collaery. Certainly, I note Mr Collaery's comments that we need to be careful. Mr Stefaniak made the point that it is helpful to move towards more of a user-pays approach to the courts. He noted that the Crown, the ACT Crown insofar as it is the DPP, will not pay a lot of these charges. It is interesting to note that the Commonwealth, which often uses our courts, will. So, this is an effective way of getting a payment from another jurisdiction.
Mr Collaery added the note of caution that in this area we need to be careful that we preserve the accessibility to the Small Claims Court of the ordinary citizen who wants to litigate. I am sure that that is a concern that all members would share, and I can assure the house that the Labor Government is very conscious of the need to preserve the accessibility of the Small Claims Court where citizens can litigate matters without necessarily the presence of lawyers and the attendant cost and where justice can be achieved on an affordable basis. We would not want to be forcing people out of that forum by excessive fees.
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