George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

The opposition supports Senator Xenophon’s amendment, the effect of which will be to enable the ACCC to commence proceedings in the Federal Magistrates Court under part IVA—that is, the unconscionable conduct provisions of the act; part IVB, which deals with industry codes; and part V, which deals with consumer protection. With all due respect to Senator Sherry, in moving the amendments—which have just been defeated—to confer jurisdiction on the Federal Magistrates Court in respect to section 46 cases and now opposing Senator Xenophon’s sensible amendment to give the commission the capacity to instigate proceedings under part IVA, part IVB or part V of the Trade Practices Act in the Federal Magistrates Court, the government has got it precisely around the wrong way. The government’s position could not be more illogical if it tried. As Senator Sherry said a moment ago, you cannot transform the Federal Magistrates Court into the Federal Court, which is what he says Senator Xenophon’s amendment would do. Senator Sherry, the Federal Magistrates Court under section 86(1A) is already seized of these matters at the suit of private litigants. If it is already seized of these matters at the suit of private litigants, why is it not appropriate that the same cases should be dealt with in the same court at the suit of the ACCC, which is the principal institutional litigant? The government’s opposition to Senator Xenophon’s amendment is quite illogical. Rather than keep part IV cases, the complex antitrust cases, in the specialist Federal Court and open up the Federal Magistrates Court to proceedings initiated by the commission in the more straightforward consumer protection and unconscionable conduct cases, the government misunderstands in a black-and-white fashion the appropriate jurisdictional home of these different causes of action.