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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 09 Hansard (Tuesday, 17 August 2004) . . Page.. 3794 ..

and the efficiency of the courts, particularly the Supreme Court and the Magistrates Court.

The practices and procedures used in our courts currently derive from different sources. As a result they differ significantly. There is no good reason for variations between the courts and the way they operate. It can result in confusion and may lead to procedural mistakes and inefficiencies, which in turn result in additional costs for the consumer, the courts, and the legal profession. Overall it impacts on the accessibility and ease of use of the courts. I described the content of these bills in some detail when I introduced them, and I will not repeat that now.

It is important though to consider the underlying outcomes the bill seeks to achieve by establishing a new rule-making system. These outcomes are: continuous improvement and simplification of the procedures of the Magistrates Court and Supreme Court; enabling inefficiencies in the Magistrates Court procedures to be remedied by rule, rather than awaiting legislative amendments; ensuring consistency through the harmonisation of the procedures in the Supreme Court and the Magistrates Court, and improving access to justice by making court procedures less complex and divergent.

The legislation establishes a rule-making committee and an advisory committee, and they will develop common rules determining the practice and procedures of the courts. The members of these committees will ultimately ensure the successful meeting of the outcomes that I have noted above. These committees include representatives from the courts, the legal profession and the government. The development of the legislation will lead to improved management of civil claims in the courts, and the passage of this legislation will make it possible for those responsible for managing the rules of the courts to proceed to develop harmonised rules. These rules will be subject to scrutiny by the Assembly.

I thank all those who have worked on developing the new rule-making framework, especially the courts themselves, and the legal profession, which was represented through both the ACT Law Society and the ACT Bar Association, and of course, officers of the Department of Justice, for another piece of very significant reform. As I indicated, this is the third arm of a significant piece of tort law reform that has been undertaken in the ACT, a jurisdiction which adopted a different approach and philosophy—and I believe a far better and more desirable philosophy and process than has been adopted in some other places. At the end of the day, I believe history will judge the tort law reform that has been achieved in the ACT very kindly, particularly when compared to the attitude adopted in some states.

So, I commend particularly officers of the Department of Justice and the Treasury for marshalling our approach to the difficulties that we faced in relation to tort and the operation of tort law within the ACT and indeed within Australia. It is a fine piece of law reform, a piece of law reform that in some respects we might have wished not to be involved in, but it has led to results such as the harmonisation of court rules and has led inexorably to these two pieces of legislation we are debating tonight. That will be to the good.

There is much work to be done in the future. A next-term agenda for this government—and I think it might be the same for the other side if it were to form government—is to

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