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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 12 Hansard (13 November) . . Page.. 4220 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

There is another comment that is interesting to me, Mr Speaker, and that is that this particular piece of legislation is one of the most difficult pieces of legislation I have read. It is interesting that it is so, because this is legislation that applies to legal practitioners. In this case, because it is primarily legal practitioners who are reading it, who cares whether it is in plain English? It is strongly couched in legalese and is wordy, legalistic and complex. One would think that, of all pieces of legislation, this is one that you would put into plain English as a demonstration of what the legal profession can do.

It is interesting, Mr Speaker, that even the relatively last-minute amendments - I think we have had them for a day, but I notice that they were completed in the afternoon of 11 November - are reasonably legalistic. There are seven pages of them. This is not a criticism of the Parliamentary Counsel, although it may be construed that way. I can see exactly why this has happened. This has happened because lawyers are being very careful about how other lawyers are going to interpret legislation that is about lawyers. So, for a regulatory Bill, we get a huge, long, complex Bill, when I would have thought that it could have been something reasonably minimal.

Those are just a couple of small criticisms. I think we have to question whether, in the future, this is actually the best way for us to regulate the legal profession. It seems to me and, I think, to many people in our community that the cost of justice is out of hand and we have to find a better way to deal with it. Maybe it is this way of regulating that is actually creating many of the problems for us. I think that is an issue that ought to be looked at very carefully in the next Assembly.

MR HUMPHRIES (Attorney-General) (10.09), in reply: Mr Speaker, I thank members for their support for the Bills. They are important Bills, providing for free movement of lawyers and improvement of the quality of service that they offer to citizens. So, I am pleased to see that they have support. Mr Moore's comments are only some of a number of comments he has made about the Law Society. So, I think lawyers in the Territory ought to be well and truly on their guard and alert to what Mr Moore might do on this score in the next Assembly. I am sure that, after he has dealt with other important issues, like euthanasia, he will get around to lawyers. So, they had better be watching out very carefully.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill agreed to in principle.

Bill, by leave, taken as a whole

MR HUMPHRIES (Attorney-General) (10.11): Mr Speaker, I seek leave to move together amendments Nos 1 to 14 circulated in my name.

Leave granted.

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