Page 3406 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 19 August 2009
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behalf of the territory. They make it clear that it is a matter for the Attorney-General to address any departure from the guidelines.
If this bill is enacted, the model litigant guidelines will become a notifiable instrument. Again, this would not be a change of policy for the government but, instead, only a change in the format and status of one aspect of the government’s policy of ensuring fairness in litigation. The model litigant guidelines have always been publicly available and prominent in guiding all litigation on behalf of the territory. They serve as a tool to ensure compliance with the established principle that the territory must act at all times with propriety and fairness. All officers, including counsel, who conduct litigation on behalf of the territory are well aware of their obligation to conduct themselves as model litigants, and both the Chief Solicitor and I work to ensure that all conduct complies with those model litigant guidelines already in place.
The reporting requirements as cast are said in Mrs Dunne’s explanatory statement to place an obligation solely on the Chief Executive of the Department of Justice and Community Safety to report on action taken to ensure compliance and reporting on breaches. One key difficulty with this is that the most recent and available information about any employee’s conduct is in the hands of the chief executive of each of the respective departments and agencies; it is not in the hands of any one chief executive, even the Chief Executive of the Department of Justice and Community Safety.
I note that Mrs Dunne has accepted that this is a problem with the drafting of her bill and is proposing amendments to rectify it accordingly. The government will be supporting those amendments, and I welcome Mrs Dunne’s indication that she will change the reporting requirements to make it clear that the relevant chief executive of each of the relevant agencies must provide and report on the conduct of litigation to the Chief Executive of the Department of Justice and Community Safety within 21 days of the end of each financial year. This is a sensible amendment. I thank her for making it, and the government will be supporting that amendment.
Of course, it is necessary to keep an eye on all of the amendments proposed today. Some people will inevitably argue that, because they have been involved in litigation against a government agency or, more likely, if they lose their case against the government agency, the government agency must somehow be acting improperly. I would strongly reject such assertions. I am confident that no members in this place would want to see misguided complaints of that type caught by this law. It is for this reason that the government will be concerned to monitor the practical and administrative burden placed on the likes of the consistently reliable, fair and honest entities that undertake litigation here in the territory, such as the Government Solicitor, the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Legal Aid Commission, in relation to the reporting aspects of this law.
In conclusion, the Law Officer Amendment Bill does not substantially alter the existing and proven methods of continuing the territory’s longstanding tradition of model litigant behaviour. The existing model litigant guidelines and provisions for regulating territory litigation are already serving the public well. This bill will simply change those from guidelines to statutory documents under legislation. The government’s agreement to this bill is a reaffirmation of our commitment to model litigant behaviour. This bill refers to a set of guidelines that the government has
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