Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to speak on this bill, because it's something that's very close to my heart. The presumption of innocence until proven guilty is one of the cornerstones of our legal system for us as legislators in this House. I took with great confidence the comments from the previous speaker, the member for Werriwa, on the Australian Human Rights Commission Amendment (Costs Protection) Bill 2023 when she referenced a wonderful piece of our broadcasting history, the movie The Castle, which is about the protection of the family home that goes right through to the High Court—where not everyone can afford to have representation. He took pro bono legal representation from a retired constitutional barrister, if my memory serves me right.

Unfortunately, what I'm seeing at the moment, and where this piece of legislation is critical for the parliament, is more often at local government. We have situations where litigious acts are being brought against members of the public or co-members with absolutely no cost of recourse. In other words, one local government member may bring an action against another member for a slur or something sinister weeks or months before a by-election. You can look on the records throughout each of the states as to which councils are more litigious than others. If we had these cost protections in place to actually award some costs—at the moment the costs are all borne by third parties, such as local government, or there are no costs awarded—we would have a different level of motivation in bringing frivolous actions to the court.

It's an expensive act. Communities shouldn't have to pay for this. As I said in my opening comments, we all enjoy the idea of 'innocent until proven guilty', although that may not always be the case in this place when we have the fourth estate. There are many situations where we're seeing cases unfold at the moment—you only have to be prompted by the headlines of each major paper, where actions will be pulled out into the media.

Now that we have some speakers in the chamber, it has given me great pleasure to be able to make a contribution to a debate that I feel so strongly about. I don't know if I'm commending this bill to the House, but I will conclude my comments.

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