Page 3106 - Week 07 - Thursday, 1 July 2010
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system touted by the ACT Labor Party at the last election. And, most of all, it will not work. Therefore, this Liberal opposition, the Canberra Liberals, will not support it. The only question remains to be asked is: will there be a virtual opening?
MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo) (3.28): The year ahead for the Attorney-General and the Justice and Community Safety Department is going to be a challenging one. The department and the attorney are tasked with continually working for a safer and more just community. This is a challenging task in any year; however, I think this year there are a number of specific issues looming which will raise unique challenges.
The first is the third court proposal Mrs Dunne has just given some considerable commentary on. One challenge the attorney is going to have is explaining the third court proposal and attempting to win the support of the legal community. The responsible course of action is for the attorney to try to bring the legal community along with the government in this process, because they are the ones who will work with the court on a day-to-day basis. However, it is fair to say that the legal profession have not been that supportive of the idea since it was first raised in early May when the budget was presented. Recently, we had a joint paper issued by the Law Society and the Bar Association, which urged the attorney not to create the district court until other options have been trialled and implemented.
For the Greens’ part, we know the required legislation will come up later this year. We will make our decision on the bill based on the answer to the fundamental question: will a district court in the ACT reduce court waiting times? This is the issue that needs to be addressed. The fact is that there are some people who are waiting 24 months to have their case heard in the Supreme Court. That is unacceptable, and something needs to be done about it.
I said in the Assembly, when the proposal was first floated, that the Greens remain to be convinced that it will in fact reduce court waiting times. That statement still largely sums up our position. That said, we remain with an open mind on this and, whilst it seems that the Liberal Party have staked out their seemingly unquestioning opposition to this, we are certainly going to be waiting to see what evolves out of the consultation process the government is going through and what form the legislation actually takes when it is presented to the Assembly.
Since the idea was first floated in the budget, we have got a more detailed understanding of how the proposal would work; and I thank the officials from JACS for the time they took to take us through some of the details. They particularly did try to explain to us how it would, in theory, reduce waiting times. However, I think there are unresolved technical issues that need to be addressed before we can be convinced that the court would operate as intended. As I have touched on, some of those matters are currently being considered as part of the consultation, and from my point of view it seems somewhat premature to form a definitive position without actually seeing some of the important detail that will come in addressing those technical issues—and I think that opportunity will come later this year.
That said, one broad fundamental issue to resolve is whether there are valid alternatives that should be looked at before creating a new court or virtual court. For instance, reforms to the existing bail provisions may be warranted. This has been
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