Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs, I present the committee's advisory report on the Courts and Tribunals Legislation Amendment (Administration) Bill 2012 together with the minutes of proceedings in evidence received by the committee. I ask leave of the House to make a short statement in connection with the report.

Leave granted.

I rise today to table the advisory report of the Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs into the Courts and Tribunals Legislation Amendment (Administration) Bill 2012. The bill proposes reforms to the administrative structures and processes of the National Native Title Tribunal, the Federal Court of Australia, the Family Court of Australia and the Federal Magistrates Court of Australia. These reforms have been presented as a means to improve the operations of the affected bodies and achieve savings.

The House of Representatives Selection Committee referred this bill to our committee for inquiry and advisory report on 1 November 2012 to consider the means by which proposed efficiencies will be achieved, the effects on the administration of the courts, and whether the proposed amendments will improve access to justice. After consulting with stakeholders through a public hearing and submissions, the committee was satisfied with the objectives and implementation of the reforms. This bill is predominantly finalising and providing the legislative authority for a number of arrangements already in place or certainly well advanced. The courts, tribunal and Attorney-General's Department have been working together over quite some time to implement the reforms. While commending the bodies on their work to date, the committee considers it prudent for an external review to be undertaken by the Australian National Audit Office at an appropriate point in time. This would provide reassurance that the anticipated benefits in terms of efficiency and effectiveness of the affected courts and tribunal have been achieved.

In regard to ongoing reporting, the committee was satisfied that existing parliamentary processes such as agency annual reports and Senate estimates provide sufficient resourcing oversight. However, the committee recommended additional safeguards for the National Native Title Tribunal by asking the Attorney-General to direct the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner to report on the adequacy of the services provided by the National Native Title Tribunal. In terms of any proposed savings, the committee would like to take the opportunity to remind members that the Parliamentary Budget Office is the most appropriate body to provide advice on potential financial implications of a bill. The committee unanimously recommended that this House pass the Courts and Tribunals Legislation Amendment (Administration) Bill 2012. It is my understanding that the deputy chair of the committee would also like to speak. I commend this report to the House.

Judi Moylan (Pearce, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before discussing the actual findings of the Social Policy and Legal Affairs Committee advisory report into the Courts and Tribunals Legislation Amendment (Administration) Bill 2012, it is worth mentioning the irony that I see in the way that this bill has been referred to committees. I have spoken in the past about the inefficient way in which we are dealing with these bill referrals in this place, where we are referring them to multiple committees for the same outcome. Indeed, I wrote to the former Speaker, the member for Scullin, about this some time ago.

This bill is about achieving efficiency, and it seems ironic to me that we cannot achieve those efficiencies ourselves in the way in which we manage the business of this chamber. It is not only my concern about the lack of efficiency in the management of bill referrals to committees, but also about what I sometimes see as the incredibly short time that committees have to report which does not allow them to do the job justice and to properly consider the implication of some of these bills which have incredible ramifications for the agencies involved in the changes and, indeed, for the Australian public.

This bill was concurrently referred to the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs. It was referred to the Social Policy and Legal Affairs Committee, and aspects of it have also been examined by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights in regard to access to justice. Again, I make the comment that it would be good to see us perhaps streamline the work of this parliament and to make sure that we are not overlapping on the proper scrutiny of bills. Then we can begin to look at how we streamline and make our different agencies in government more effective. But I do thank the Social Policy and Legal Affairs Committee secretariat and my colleagues for the rational approach that they have taken to scrutinising this particular bill by drawing principally from evidence given to the Senate standing committee in the preparation of this report so that there was not duplication of work.

The bill has two principle aims. The first is to legislatively formalise the merger of the administration functions of the Family Court and the Federal Magistrates Court, which occurred in 2008-09. The second is to merge the appropriations, staff and some administrative functions of the National Native Title Tribunal, or the NNTT, with the Federal Court. In total, the bill intends to achieve $4.75 million in savings each year over the next four years. In merging the administration functions of the Family Court and the Federal Magistrates Court, which is now called the Federal Circuit Court, a relatively meagre one-off amount of $6.3 million was returned to the government and 50 staff were shed through voluntary redundancies and attrition. In terms of ongoing savings, the chief executive officer of the Family Court, who has also been acting as chief executive officer of the Federal Magistrates Court since November 2008, stated that no further savings could come from the merger, except for $500,000 a year in reduced compliance costs when this bill is passed. Notably, the Attorney General's Department agreed with this assessment. But even that saving could quickly evaporate. The chief executive officer of the Federal Magistrates Court has a total remuneration package of upwards of $300,000 a year, meaning that if or when such a person is appointed, ongoing savings from this measure will be less than $200,000 a year—not even enough to employ another judge to lighten the continually increasing workload of the courts.

Whilst the committee heard evidence that the temporary combined role of chief executive officer of both courts is currently working, this may not persist into the future. As the government's Future governance options for federal family law courts in Australia report, the Semple report, notes on page 6: 'The 'service culture' of the Federal Magistrates Court is, by design, different from that of the Family Court. While the FMC's service culture has certainly been received positively by litigants and legal practitioners, it has also created significant friction and resentment between the two courts in relation to resource allocation and, in particular, judicial support resources … and … tension over resources has distracted the Family Court and FMC from their core responsibilities.' In terms of savings, the Attorney General's Department confirmed to the committee that the recurring $4.75 million intended to be saved under the bill will come from the second aim of the bill, namely the transfer of the National Native Title Tribunal staff, appropriations and administrative functions. The 2012 Strategic Review of Small and Medium Agencies in the Attorney-General's portfolio—the Skehill Review—reveals that $2 million of that will come from the Federal Court taking over responsibility for mediation from the NNTT. As the Skehill review outlines on page 75, that is because mediation in the NNTT is primarily conducted by tribunal members with a total remuneration package of $280,000 a year, whereas mediation in the Federal Court is undertaken by officers at the legal 2 or SES band 1 level, with total remuneration ranging between $160,000 and $220,000 per annum. Additionally, the level of support provided to Federal Court officers to conduct mediation is less than the support generally provided in the NNTT to members.

Understandably, with less support staff available to the Federal Court mediators, this has caused concern about the potential for delay in native title decisions, which can already take up to more than 10 years, as well as the loss of experienced staff from the NNTT, who have built up years of cultural awareness and sensitivity, which is crucial in hearing and mediating native title claims.

Whilst the committee sought to confirm that there would be a transition of staff and expertise, it is concerning that the Skehill review points out that the $2 million in savings it identified will be realised with 'rationalisation' of staff—or, more correctly, the loss of staff. Considering, too, the significant disparity in pay between the NNTT members and officers of the Federal Court, there is not likely to be a transition of NNTT members, with their collective knowledge and expertise, to the Federal Court.

Due to the relatively constrained inquiry by the Social Policy and Legal Affairs Committee these issues have not been canvassed in depth. But hopefully the more detailed Senate committee inquiry will investigate these aspects more thoroughly and the House will then be more equipped to determine the likely ongoing effects that this bill may have.