Annette Hurley (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I present the following responses to resolutions of the Senate:

(a)

Response from the Hon. Michael Black, Chief Justice of the Federal Court of Australia, to a resolution of the Senate of 12 August 2009 concerning Federal Court of Australia registry services in Tasmania; and

(b)

Response from the Ambassador of the Russian Federation to Australia (Mr Alexander V Blokhin), to a resolution of the Senate of 18 August 2009 concerning the death of Ms Natalya Estemirova.

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to move a motion in relation to the response of the Chief Justice of the Federal Court of Australia that has just been tabled.

Leave granted.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

The history of this matter is that on 12 August this year I moved a motion in the Senate, co-sponsored by the Leader of the Australian Greens, expressing concern over the maintenance of the Federal Court registry and its services in Hobart. The Senate passed that motion, as I understand it, on the voices without a voice being recorded in dissent. His Honour, the Chief Justice’s response is, I must say, very disappointing and it falls very short of the mark. Indeed, His Honour, after going for about 1¾ pages, finally admits in the second last paragraph of his correspondence to the President:

I appreciate that, in context, this does not meet the Senate’s concerns …

He is dead right: his response does not meet the Senate’s concerns, and I believe that this is another example of bureaucratic interference and bureaucratic empire building at the expense of service delivery. Tasmania is a fully-fledged state of the Federation. It has a right to full Federal Court registry facilities in Tasmania. To make it an outpost of the Melbourne registry is completely and utterly unacceptable. I would invite any senator interested in this matter, or indeed any member of the public, to peruse the Senate Hansard of the Senate estimates legal and constitutional affairs committee, where I questioned Mr Warwick Soden, who is from the Federal Court registry, about the review and its impact. It became obvious that there is either a surplus capacity in Melbourne that would be then transferred to Tasmania—which begs the question: why should Tasmanian personnel suffer?—or, if there was an overcapacity in Tasmania, why couldn’t that then be scaled down to a level that was acceptable?

We are told in this correspondence that His Honour, the Chief Justice, wanted his letter to be tabled because the matter was not debated prior to the vote. He is right on that, but if he was properly informed he would know that some considerable time for a matter as discrete as this was taken at Senate estimates by myself and, I think, others in pursuing this very important issue. For the suggestion to be made gratuitously that this was not a matter of debate or not a matter on which senators were not properly informed is a reflection that I trust was not meant, and I trust I am being oversensitive in that regard.

But His Honour tells us in the fifth paragraph of the letter that ‘the service provided in Tasmania would not be diminished’. With great respect, when you do not have a resident registrar who is sitting there in situ, it is very hard to believe and understand that a deputy district registrar, based in Melbourne, would somehow be able to provide the same sort of service as somebody on the ground in situ everyday. And so with great respect to His Honour, that assertion is not something that can be sustained and it is a matter of concern that His Honour thinks that his explanation somehow deals with that issue.

In the second last paragraph on the first page of the letter, His Honour goes on to set up a straw man and then knock it down. He said:

It has never been proposed—and will not be proposed—that the Tasmania District Registry should be closed.

Nobody accused the Federal Court of that, so why on earth raise it? It was not in the motion. That was not the accusation in the motion. That was not the situation that Senator Brown and I and other Tasmanian senators were asserting. Yet, this straw man was set up and then it was said it has never been proposed. With great respect to His Honour, I know that that was never proposed. Nobody suggested it was proposed, so why it found its way into his correspondence I am at somewhat of a loss to understand.

The last paragraph of the first page tells us that the district registrar for Victoria, ‘a very experienced officer’, will continue in her capacity as the district registrar for Tasmania. I am sure the district registrar from Victoria is very experienced and very capable. But when you make these decisions, it is not done on the basis of who the personnel might be at any particular time. This district registrar might in fact resign tomorrow, and then there might be a less experienced one. But let me simply say that the Tasmania district registrar, Mr Alan Parrot, a man with whom I went through law school, is also very experienced, very capable and has the full confidence of the Tasmanian legal profession. I hope that there is no slight in relation to the experience and professional capacity of Mr Parrot, the Tasmanian district registrar.

It is very interesting that we are getting rid of the fully-fledged Tasmanian district registrar. And guess what we need to replace him? A registry manager will be appointed. So here we go, the actual person who delivers the justice, who helps to get cases moving, the person who can do all of these things to affect justice, that person is removed and backfilled by a bureaucrat. This is how the bureaucracy takes over. It is almost as though the health department has got hold of the Federal Court. You get rid of the doctors and you have more bureaucrats in the health department, which seems to be the way of every state health department all around Australia at the moment.

One thing I do agree with in His Honour’s letter is:

The Federal Court’s disposition rate in Tasmania is exceptionally good.

I agree with him. It is very good. He then goes on to say:

I do not expect these excellent figures to change, other than to improve.

Yet he tells us the total numbers are being shrunk in the Federal Court all around Australia. So we are now going to do more with less. It defies logic, it defies experience and, with great respect to His Honour, it does not suggest that much robust thought has been put into his response.

I find it regrettable that I have to make these comments about somebody who I must say runs the Federal Court well, but the matters that he has referred to in his response to the Senate resolution would suggest that he is being advised by people who are not necessarily a full bottle on what has actually occurred in Tasmania. I would ask the Federal Court to reconsider their approach. When I asked about all these matters at Senate estimates, I was told by Mr Soden that no decision had been taken and that everything would be considered very carefully. Of course, His Honour still does not tell us exactly what the savings are and at what cost to the delivery of justice to the people of Tasmania. With great respect, you cannot reduce the personnel and the services and then still assert that the excellent figures in the registry will not change other than to improve. With great respect, that offends logic.

My time has run out. I note that Senator Barnett, who has also taken a very active interest in this matter, will make some comments. I publicly express my regret that the Chief Justice’s response, which indicates the very proper concerns expressed by the Law Society of Tasmania and right across the board, from Senator Bob Brown to me, completely and utterly ignored them.

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I concur with Senator Abetz’s remarks and disappointment with the response from His Honour Chief Justice Black. I would have expected that at least the options that were available, when His Honour and whomsoever else made the decision to deprive Tasmania of its registrar, would have been canvassed in this response, but they are not. It is as if the concern of the Senate—that there may have been options canvassed and there may have been alternatives looked at—does not exist, but what we have is a statement of claim by His Honour which justifies the decision made but not the clear request for a look at the option to retain the registrar in Tasmania.

As Senator Abetz said, we are a federation. This is the court making the decision, under Chief Justice Black, that Tasmania should be deprived of an entity that is available in the other states. I do not accept that. I absolutely join Senator Abetz in saying in this chamber that the court should reconsider this matter, maintain the registrar and look at the other options available to it in making financial adjustments if necessary. Maybe His Honour felt it was inappropriate, but there is no request canvassed anywhere in this response to look at funding alternatives.

Indeed, in the last sentence of Chief Justice Black’s response, he says:

Finally, I would like to say the commitment shown to our work in Tasmania by Justices Heerey, Marshall and Middleton—and I would like to think by myself—should leave no room for any concern that the Federal Court regards its presence in that State of our federation—

that is, Tasmania—

to be in the slightest degree less important than its presence elsewhere.

Who does His Honour think we are? He is depriving Tasmania of the registrar but says that should not, in the slightest degree, show Tasmania as less important than elsewhere. I fail to see the logic of that or, indeed, the common sense of that. This is way short of what I would have expected would be a response from His Honour to the Senate on this matter.

His Honour said the matter was not debated in the Senate but that due consideration was given, but I might shoot this one back to His Honour: where was this matter debated in the public arena in Tasmania? I presume there were debates on the matter behind closed doors before it was settled by the court, but, if we are going to seek public debate on this matter, let’s have it. Senator Abetz and I, and other senators present, would happily join in a public meeting to debate the matter if His Honour would care to take that invitation, in Hobart or Launceston. I will certainly be there if he would care to do just that and extend the potential for debate about this matter to the fullest before it is finally settled.

His Honour says, as Senator Abetz pointed out, that the Federal Court’s disposition rate in Tasmania is exceptionally good. He said:

We have about 50 filings a year in Tasmania and the average time taken from filing to final disposition over the past few years is six to eight months. I doubt whether any court in the country could beat this.

There is His Honour saying that you will not get a better arrangement for disposition of court matters than you get in Tasmania, but Tasmania is the only place we are going to deprive of a registrar. I would have thought that his argument is a cogent one for keeping the registrar right where he is. His Honour goes on to say:

I would also draw attention to the fact that the disposition rate of 95 per cent of all applications finalised within 18 months is even better than the Federal Court’s national average.

Then, curiously enough, he says:

I do not expect these excellent figures to change, other than to improve.

So you take the registrar away, you have the registry done from Melbourne and he predicts that you are going to get a better outcome. Really? I do not understand the logic of that argument. I do not accept it as a logical argument to be entertained in this chamber or, I should submit, anywhere else. This is a most unsatisfactory response.

I will write to His Honour to ask that he review this decision for, amongst other reasons, the reasons stated in his letter, which I have quoted, show an exceptional performance by the court in Tasmania, which is an argument that it should not be changed.

The position I take on this matter, as a Tasmanian senator, is not changed in any way—in fact, it is strengthened—by this response from the Chief Justice. The very disappointing aspect of this letter is of course the determinant one, which is His Honour failing to change the point of view and, we may presume from this, the decision to deprive Tasmania of its registrar. That is not good enough. His Honour, I believe, ought to reconsider and along the way to at least test public feeling on the excellent performance of the court with its registrar in Hobart.

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. If you want to find savings, then look at the much bigger expenditures of the bigger mainland states to find that saving; do not rob Tasmania of its excellent, unbeaten performance—according to His Honour—in order to achieve that outcome.

Guy Barnett (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I stand to associate myself with the remarks of Senate Abetz and, indeed, Senator Brown with respect to the response from the Chief Justice of the Federal Court, the Hon. Michael Black, in his letter dated 19 August 2009. It is a very regrettable response. That motion was put through the Senate and passed without dissent. In fact, this has been an ongoing issue now for some time, during which the Rudd Labor government have been fully aware of the concerns, and not only of Tasmanian senators and members—I note that the federal member for Denison, Duncan Kerr, has a similar view to our own on this matter. I wonder what the Rudd Labor government are doing about this matter. Are they listening? What liaison, what relationship, what communication has been had between the Chief Justice and the Rudd Labor government?

The Hon. Robert McClelland, the Attorney-General, visited Tasmania last month. I met him during his visit; he visited Hobart and also Launceston, and I met him there at the community legal centre. I raised this issue with him at the time. I said that it was a very serious issue and that he really should pursue it. It has been raised with him; he has had it raised in a range of areas.

I know for a fact that the Law Society of Tasmania has expressed extreme concern and strong disagreement with the approach being taken by the Federal Court in Tasmania and by the Federal Court administration across this country with respect to its plans for the district registrar in the Federal Court in Tasmania. The Law Society has written to various members of federal parliament in Tasmania. The President, Luke Rheinberger, has written and expressed his view, and I have talked to him and met with him. The executive director, Martyn Hagan, has acted and prosecuted the case to say, ‘No, this is a retrograde step and shouldn’t occur.’

In fact, the Law Society has gone to so much trouble to express its concerns that it has actually put in a submission to the current Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee inquiry into access to justice. I commend the Law Society for that submission and for making the effort to express its concerns. Obviously, access to justice is a very broad term of reference, but it relates to the time, the costs, any potential delays—all those issues.

The Law Society of Tasmania has put forward a submission, and that will no doubt be considered very carefully by our committee, which I chair. We have had a number of hearings around the country, in Melbourne and other places—Sydney and Canberra are, I think, coming up—and we have had a lot of good submissions. That submission will be considered very carefully, and this Senate committee will no doubt put its view back into the public arena and back to the full body of the Senate in due course when we report on that inquiry. I commend the Law Society of Tasmania for its work and for its efforts to stand up for proper justice and a fair go for Tasmania.

Tasmania is a federated state; we are part of the Commonwealth and should be treated as such. As Senator Abetz has noted, he himself raised this in Senate estimates in June, as indeed did other senators, including me. But Senator Abetz prosecuted the case well, and I thought, frankly, that we would get a decent response—a very sensible response—based on the prosecution of the case at that time. If the Labor government had been listening and taking on board the concerns—not just ours but also those of the Tasmanian Law Society and fair-minded Tasmanians—they would have fixed this. As I say, I have raised this personally with the federal Attorney-General. The fact is that we are not just an outpost of Melbourne, and we need to be treated fairly and consistently, like other Australian states.

I do not think the letter from the Chief Justice properly sets out in a comprehensive manner all the reasons why it should not continue the way it has. Obviously, there should be reforms. But to do away with the district registrar in that sense—not the registry, but the registrar—is inappropriate. I ask all Tasmanian parliamentarians in this place—and, indeed, those in the other house—to stand up on this issue and to say, ‘No, this is not the way to go.’ I ask them to stand up and say, ‘The Federal Court needs its full complement to operate and function effectively and properly.’

It is interesting that the government have, of their own accord, spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on upgrading and renovating the Federal Court. On the one hand they are happy to spend—and it is to their credit that they have spent—significant funds on ensuring that the structure of the court is properly maintained and there is a fully professional and excellent institution based in Davey Street, Hobart.

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Abetz interjecting—

Guy Barnett (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What was that, Senator Abetz?

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Davey Street, Hobart, a very good address.

Guy Barnett (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A very good address, of course. We know Davey Street, Hobart, quite well, don’t we? The government are spending money on capital upgrade, but on the other hand they are trying to cut costs involved with operational and staff arrangements. I have spoken at Senate estimates with Mr Warwick Soden and in private more recently. Let us put it on the record: this matter will be pursued. We will not give up. On behalf of the Law Society and others, in this place and elsewhere, we are disappointed in the response from the Chief Justice in his letter that has been tabled today. Watch this space.

Question agreed to.