Page 3557 - Week 11 - Thursday, 22 September 2005
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will be administered. These are issues within the ken, the wit and the statutory responsibilities of the Chief Justice and the Chief Magistrate.
These are the complexities and difficulties. In recognition of those, I have, through this particular process, made arrangements to work with the Chief Magistrate and the Chief Justice. Acknowledging that the decisions are theirs, I have arranged to work with them in a cooperative way to seek to support them in the decisions that they need to make to address the very serious criticisms that the Auditor-General has made about the management of the courts. It is perhaps the only area of administration in which ministers’ hands are essentially tied.
MR SPEAKER: The minister’s time has expired.
MR STEFANIAK: I thank the attorney for that answer. I note the 2002 report into financial management processes was not addressed. Why didn’t you adopt a similar principle then, which might have saved us a few problems?
MR STANHOPE: For the same reasons in relation to respect for the doctrine of the separation of powers. Many of the reports that have been commissioned in relation to the courts over the past 15 years have a litany of recommendations and suggestions that have not been implemented.
Every Attorney-General in the ACT, including you, Mr Stefaniak—and you and I know this because you and I understand, over our time in here, each as an attorney now and as a previous attorney—knows the issues around the implementation of recommendations in reports that apply to the administration of the courts. It essentially concerns the statutory responsibility that the Chief Magistrate has for the administration of his court and the operation of the separation of powers.
It is the one area of administration in which governments cannot operate in a hands-on fashion; we simply do not have the statutory authority or responsibility. The separation of powers simply prevents a degree of intervention that is possible in relation to all other organisations that are budget funded.
In retrospect, to the extent that the department of justice has worked assiduously with the court, particularly with the Chief Magistrate, to address issues around the budget overrun and funding, we sought, through some amendments to listing and case management, to refine, streamline and assist the courts in being more efficient and coming in on budget. To date, much of what we have done has not had the effect that we would have hoped for at the end of the day.
We now have a detailed, rigorous report by the Auditor-General. It highlights a range of apparent shortcomings in the management and administration and issues that go to efficiency. We are all aware of some of the statistics that have been revealed—the fact that it takes months longer, on average, for a matter to be concluded in the Magistrates Court than the Australian average; that a matter in the Magistrates Court in the ACT is likely to be adjourned almost, on average, twice as often as the national average and five times more than in the magistrates system within Queensland.
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