Page 3239 - Week 11 - Thursday, 12 September 1991
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MAGISTRATES AND CORONER'S COURTS (REGISTRAR)
BILL 1991 [NO. 2]
Debate resumed from 8 August 1991, on motion by Mr Connolly:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
MR STEFANIAK (11.37): This Bill, which had its formulation, like virtually all of these, during the time of the Alliance Government, is a commonsense provision to bring the ACT Magistrates Court and Coroner's Court into line with what is now becoming standard practice throughout Australia, and that is to change the titles of clerk and deputy clerk of the court to registrar and deputy registrar. I point out to members that even in the ACT we have not had a clerk of the Supreme Court for a hell of a long time. The titles there have always been registrar and deputy registrar. So, this will merely bring the Magistrates Court into line with what has been the title used by our other court in the ACT for a long time. This is something that is occurring throughout the States as well.
At this stage I would like to digress and say a few things in relation to the clerk of the court. The ACT Magistrates Court celebrated its sixtieth anniversary last year and is 61 this year. So, for 60 years there has been a clerk of the court or a clerk of petty sessions, and then more recently a clerk of the Magistrates Court. We have had some great characters there.
Perhaps one of the greatest clerks of the Magistrates Court was old Harry Taswell, who did not mind a drink. Harry was a member of the Canberra Club. I remember a lovely story which I heard, which goes back some years ago. Harry was a very keen golfer as well as being the clerk of the Magistrates Court. He was a member of the Canberra Club golf team, as was a prominent local solicitor, and they went to Cootamundra for a golf day.
Unfortunately, after the golf, when they left the Cootamundra Golf Club on the Sunday afternoon, Harry took the wrong set of clubs. The set of clubs contained the local police sergeant's keys to the Cootamundra lockup. For some reason the local police sergeant had lost or misplaced the duplicate set of keys. As the bus taking the Canberra Club golf members back to Canberra travelled off, Harry took the wrong set of golf clubs with him. They arrived back in Canberra fairly late on the Sunday night, and I think Harry had somewhere else to go, so he did not go directly home.
Well, the police sergeant came out and took what he thought was his set of golf clubs. When he got back to the police station he had to look after two prisoners who unfortunately were in the lockup. He found that he did not have his set of golf clubs. Putting two and two together,
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