Page 1571 - Week 05 - Thursday, 5 May 2016
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Madam Speaker, this bill makes amendments to the legislation governing the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal, or the ACAT, to give effect to the outcomes of the 2015 restructure of ACAT presidential positions and the recent government review into the civil dispute jurisdiction and appointment requirements for the head of ACAT.
As members are aware the ACAT is a statutory independent tribunal that provides an accessible forum in which individuals, businesses, community groups, and agencies can access justice. The ACAT performs an invaluable role within our justice system. It provides a timely, efficient and flexible point of access for citizens seeking to resolve disputes or have executive action reviewed. It is also cheaper, faster and less formal than court proceedings. The ACAT is independent, transparent and accountable.
The amendments contained in this bill are designed to enhance the objectives and characteristics of the tribunal. The amendments relate principally to three areas of reform: reform to the presidential structure, reform to the civil dispute jurisdiction, and reform to the requirements of appointment for the head of tribunal.
Turning first to the reform to the presidential structure, with the expiry of a number of presidential member appointments at the end of 2015 the government evaluated the existing member structure of the ACAT in order to determine whether the tribunal was appropriately structured to undertake its functions into the future.
As a result of this work, the presidential member structure changed to provide additional full-time resources to the tribunal. This change included appointing one person to the positions of general president and appeal president using the current section 94(4) of the act. This appointment was made temporarily for 12 months while the government undertook a review into the appropriate appointment requirements for the head of ACAT.
The appointment of one person to these two roles follows similar approaches to upper management of tribunals in other Australian jurisdictions and also the practice in the ACT Supreme Court. The government has decided to formalise this decision by amending the act to combine the positions of general president and appeal president. As a result, the bill contains amendments to combine the functions of these two roles and to change the title of the head of ACAT simply to “President”.
The bill also makes consequential amendments to other acts to effect these changes. Transitional amendments are contained in the bill to provide that once the act has commenced, the current general president is taken to be appointed as the president of the tribunal until the end of their term on the same conditions as currently provided.
Turning to the results of the discussion paper, this bill gives effect to the outcomes of the discussion paper released by the Justice and Community Safety Directorate earlier this year. That paper sought comments from the community and key justice system stakeholders about proposals to reform the civil dispute jurisdiction and membership structure of the tribunal.
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