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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 1 Hansard (19 February) . . Page.. 122 ..

School Without Walls

MS McRAE: Mr Speaker, my question is to Mr Stefaniak in his capacity as Minister for Education. Minister, in relation to your ongoing court battles with the Friends of SWOW, can you inform the Assembly of the total to date of the legal costs to the Government of the various court actions - the one in regard to the relocation to Dickson and the forthcoming one in regard to staying or not staying at Braddon? How much do you plan to spend on these court costs to get your own way, rather than negotiating with parents and students?

MR STEFANIAK: Ms McRae, you are probably saying that a little bit tongue-in-cheek. As you know, we have been negotiating with parents and students. I indicated earlier that, as a result of those negotiations, at least some commonsense came through last Friday, with those parents and students who wanted to start a program at Dickson being able to do so. As I said to Ms Tucker, unfortunately, with the way some of the people have been behaving over the last few weeks, we could negotiate with them for 48 hours straight, go to sleep, wake up and start again, and not realistically get anywhere.

Ms Tucker: Maybe you should engage a mediator.

MR STEFANIAK: I do not think even that would necessarily work. I have been involved probably in as much mediation as you have, Ms Tucker, through my experience as a solicitor. I have found that, when one side is absolutely diametrically opposed to conceding a number of points, you can mediate until you are blue in the face and it will not work. So, as I said to you earlier, if the Friends of SWOW Inc. have anything new to come up with with the department, certainly we will look at it; but I do not think that looks at all likely. If they have a new legal adviser and they want to see the court case through to the end - they brought it - there is very little we can do. I think it would be completely improper for the department to pull out of a court case and leave the playing field to them.

In terms of legal costs, Ms McRae, which you mentioned, I am not sure of exactly what the bill is to date. Of course, it being a civil matter, I understand that someone who is backing the Friends of SWOW has put up a surety because, as is traditional in legal costs, when one side is successful, costs are awarded to them. That does not mean absolutely full costs. You do not normally get back 100 per cent of everything you spend, but you usually get back a significant majority of what you spend. So, it may well be, at the end of the day, if the Government is successful, that our costs will be indeed quite minimal. In terms of the exact costs to date, I do not have that figure readily available.

I would hope in relation to this matter, as I said yesterday, that the court is keen to give us an expedited hearing. I would hope that hearing would take place in the next few months. I would hope that it would not be unduly protracted. That, of course, will help minimise costs. The Government is very confident and the department is very confident on their legal position in relation to this matter. Again as I said yesterday, it is absolutely fundamental that the department has the responsibility and the legal duty, I would think, to run its education system as it sees fit; it is not really a matter for the courts, and I think His Honour, Mr Justice Higgins, in obiter dicta he mentioned in the Friday case, actually hinted at that point.

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