Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Hansard source

Labor supports the Law and Justice Legislation Amendment (Northern Territory Local Court) Bill 2016, which makes technical and uncontroversial amendments to a range of Commonwealth acts in recognition of recent changes to the Northern Territory's court system. The bill is necessitated by the Local Court Act 2015 of the Northern Territory, which passed the Northern Territory legislative assembly in April 2015 and is expected to enter into force in May of this year. That Northern Territory act makes a number of changes to the Territory's court system. Relevantly, for the purposes of the Commonwealth government and for this parliament, it consolidates two of the Territory's courts, the Local Court and the Court of Summary Jurisdiction, and renames as 'judges' those presently styled 'magistrates'. This is of course a matter for the Northern Territory government and for the Territory legislative assembly, but it does have federal consequences.

One of the innovations of Australia's Constitution is that jurisdiction and powers conferred by federal legislation are frequently exercised by state courts and judicial officers. In this respect, nomenclature is important and legislation must be drafted precisely. Commonwealth legislation recognises that different levels of judicial officers in the states and territories who exercise different jurisdictions often have quite different levels of expertise. The different titles of 'magistrate' and 'judge' have been convenient markers. They are used in several Commonwealth acts to distinguish between the different functions that are to be conferred on those different kinds of judicial officer. In a surprising number of cases, Commonwealth legislation confers particular functions on different kinds of judicial officers, and it is that surprising number of acts that are dealt with in this bill—these being acts which use terms like 'judge', 'magistrate' and 'court of summary jurisdiction'.

The intent of this bill is that the restructuring of the Territory's courts effected by the Northern Territory's Local Court Act 2015 and the Northern Territory's renaming of its judicial officers does not change the present operation of the kinds of provisions I have referred to that are in Commonwealth acts—that is, provisions which confer functions on judicial officers by reference to the titles that they hold. In keeping with that intent, the bill amends a range of existing pieces of legislation, and adds a provision to the Acts Interpretation Act 1901. The amendment there is to provide that, as a general rule of interpretation, in Commonwealth legislation the term 'magistrate' would include Northern Territory Local Court judges; the term 'judge' would not include Northern Territory Local Court judges; and the term 'court of summary jurisdiction' would include the Northern Territory Local Court.

The bill further amends references to those terms in Commonwealth acts which separately define those and similar terms. 'Magistrate' includes NT Local Court judges in the Bankruptcy Act 1966, the Customs Act 1901, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, the Excise Act 1901, the Extradition Act 1988, the International War Crimes Tribunals Act 1995, the Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner Act 2006, the Marriage Act 1961, the Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Act 1987 and the Quarantine Act 1908. In each of these acts, the term 'judge' or 'magistrate' is used, and this bill preserves the current division of responsibilities or the current conferral of responsibilities on the judicial officers referred to in those acts as either 'magistrate' or 'judge'. There are two acts in which 'judge' will be defined as not including Northern Territory Local Court judges, and they are the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Act 1986 and the Royal Commissions Act 1902.

There are four more pieces of Commonwealth legislation that are dealt with in this bill which have, again, consequential amendments dealing with the change in title that has been effected by the Northern Territory act of last year. The term 'state judicial officer' will be defined as not including Northern Territory Local Court judges in the Judicial Misbehaviour and Incapacity (Parliamentary Commissions) Act 2012. Another term, 'magistrates court', will be defined as including Northern Territory Local Court as a court of summary jurisdiction for the purposes of small claims proceedings under the Fair Work Act 2009. The final amendment is to the High Court of Australia Act 1979 so that service as a judge—that is the new title—of the Northern Territory Local Court will not of itself qualify a person for appointment as a High Court justice under the High Court of Australia Act 1979.

As can be seen, this bill tries to capture all of the references in the Commonwealth statute book to these terms—'judge', 'court of summary jurisdiction' and 'magistrate'—so that, despite the change by the Northern Territory legislature to the title of its judicial officers, there will not be any change in effect to the divisions of responsibility of and the conferring of functions on those Northern Territory judicial officers by the various Commonwealth acts that do that. The bill also contains a number of transitional provisions to ensure that current arrangements under various acts are not disturbed.

As I have said, and as would be clear from this speech, these changes are technical in nature, they are distinctly uncontroversial and they preserve the existing operation of the federal judicial system. I commend the bill to the House.

See this speech in context