Page 4942 - Week 16 - Tuesday, 26 November 1991
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pay more attention to that issue, because the more than a dozen criminal law reform Bills that have come through whilst the Labor Government has been back in power, or thereabouts, have not come from his ministry; they have come from the Residents Rally or Mr Stefaniak. Effective law reform reposes in the Opposition at the moment, let us face it.
That raises two questions. It raises the question of whether the Labor Party is capable of driving reform; it always claims to be a reformist party. The other question that it raises is whether the criminal law reform instinct in the Government Law Office is running at a high enough pitch. The general law reform instinct is, and we are served by a most excellent group who service the Law Reform Committee. But there are concerns in my mind about the upper direction, and the strength of purpose in that area. I say no more.
We are talking about spending taxpayers' money, and I think there is a level of frustration, perhaps all around this Assembly, that we feel about that particular area. Those that will read this Hansard later will know exactly what I am referring to. Action should be taken to ensure that the community gets a more innovative and more forceful dollar out of this portion of the funds that are spent in that criminal law area. I am not, of course, referring to the Government Solicitor's Office in these remarks.
In respect of the legal expenses to government, there is a high cost in terms of the provision of legal advice to government departments. We have seen that in the land planning area and in the building disputes area there is continuing recourse to private legal consulting advice. I believe that it is time, with the globalisation of legal services and with national law firms here now allied to local firms, that we looked very carefully at giving work outside of the city, although Mr Connolly will move quickly to remind me of the trade practices issues here; that we need, wherever possible, to try to ensure that those other government departments, not the Attorney's department, look to see whether they could not get the same advice in Canberra.
We noticed during the Estimates Committee hearings that the Government is still continuing to use the time hallowed firm in Brisbane that has given contractual dispute advice. It might be an appropriate juncture to indicate to the appropriate people either that they may want to gain an interest in a local firm, and thereby secure their legal services locally and contribute to the local private legal profession, or that there should be a competitive open tender for the provision of contract disputation advice.
I accept that in a small town there are certain sensibilities about going to local firms on major contractual disputes. But, in my experience, if major commercial firms use local services, I think that the
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