Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

As we have heard, this bill seeks to merge the corporate services functions of the Federal Court of Australia, the Family Court of Australia and the Federal Circuit Court of Australia, and this would result in a single administrative entity for those above mentioned courts. This entity would also include the National Native Title Tribunal, which currently sits within the Federal Court entity.

We understand that the corporate services to be shared will include communications, finance, human resources, information technology, libraries, procurement, contract management, property, risk oversight and statistics. We also understand that the shared corporate services would be managed by the Chief Executive Officer and Principal Registrar of the Federal Court. Importantly, the statutory independence of the three courts would be preserved and the existing Chief Justices and Chief Judge would maintain responsibility for the business of their respective courts. There have been a number of reviews conducted into this area over the past few years: there was one in 2012, the Skehill strategic review, a KPMG review in 2014, and a 2015 Ernest and Young review. In broad terms, they all identified potential savings and efficiencies in sharing administrative arrangements of our country's courts.

We understand that the merger, based on government advice, is expected to deliver efficiencies to the courts of $9.4 million to 2021 and ongoing annual efficiencies of $5.4 million post 2021. We are very pleased to hear the Attorney-General make it very clear that it is the government's intent that all savings would be reinvested into the court system. Having said that, it needs to be placed on the record that even with the reinvestment of these administrative savings back into the court system the simple fact is that we will still be left with a chronically underfunded federal court system, particularly in the family division. The 2013-14 annual reports of the Federal Court, the Family Court and the Federal Circuit Court, show the combined deficits of the courts over the forward estimates is estimated to be $44.2 million. It has been reported that courts could be facing a blow-out in expenses of up to $75 million by 2017-18.

It is, of course, alarming that the government's response, in part, to what can accurately be labelled as a 'funding crisis' in Australia's court system is to try to reintroduce what in effect is a divorce tax, by significantly increasing certain fees in the Family Court. It is worth noting that the measure has already been disallowed twice in the Senate. As far as the Greens are concerned, this is something that we certainly will once again move to disallow, should the government again attempt to make it more expensive for people to file for divorce.

Extracting money from families who are already under a significant emotional load and are already suffering emotionally and potentially financially already, is not the solution to sustainable funding for the courts. As we often hear in the justice area, justice delayed is in too many cases justice denied. We owe it to the Australian people to have a court system that progresses matters in a way that allows people to have resolution within a reasonable time frame and allows people access to justice, because access to justice in this country has become more and more difficult as the years have gone by. While it was pleasing to hear at estimates recently that there is now a full complement of judges, there have been significant delays in appointing judges to the Federal Circuit Court and the Family Court, which again resulted in what are quite simply unacceptable waiting times in many of those courts.

It is worth the Senate reflecting on the submission of the Law Council of Australia to the inquiry of the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee into this bill. The Law Council wrote:

Judicial vacancies result in unacceptable delays in the listing of matters. The earliest first return date for some matters filed in the Sydney Registry of the Family Court as at December 2015, was May 2016, with delays exceeding three years for some matters to reach trial.

It is also worth reflecting on the reports of a comment made by a recently retired Federal Circuit Court judge, Giles Coakes, who earlier this year was reported as saying, 'It's inexcusable in my view that the government has not met its responsibility to make timely appointments.' It is worth reflecting that—as the previous speaker, Senator Collins, said—some appointments have been made in recent times, which is an accurate comment. It is also worth reflecting on the evidence given to the Senate estimates committee just a couple of weeks ago by the Attorney-General, Senator Brandis, on the difficulties around pension arrangements for judges in certain federal courts and legislated ceilings on the numbers of judges in certain federal courts. It is the view of the Greens that if there are legislative actions, or a legislative action, that can be taken to resolve those two matters—if the difficulty around pension arrangements, which the Attorney General suggested was responsible for the high number of judges who are currently on sick leave, needs changing and dealing with in legislation—then the Attorney should be working on legislation to bring forward to this parliament to fix that issue, and again with the other matter I just mentioned.

The second reading speech on this legislation says:

The Bill will place control of corporate services in the hands of the Federal Court CEO. The Federal Court CEO will also hold the roles of accountable authority under the finance law and agency head under the Public Service Act.

This does not mean that the Federal Court will be 'taking over' the running of the Family Court and Federal Circuit Court. Each court will remain independent in their core functions and will not be subject to the control of another court.

I ask on the record here, and I would be interested in the minister's response, if those comments are intended to cover the concerns raised by the current chief executive officer of the Family Court of Australia, in his submission to the committee inquiry, regarding the Family Court's and the Federal Circuit Court's control over its information technology. The CEO in his submission does not believe that the bill provides enough control for the Family Court and Federal Circuit Courts over their provisions around information technology. He further submitted that there is the possibility that a conflict of interest could arise in giving the chief executive officer of one court the power to make decisions that affect all three courts.

I would be interested in a response from the minister to those matters and also, if possible, an assurance that the considerable expertise of the staff in the various registries will not be impacted on by this merger—that is, whether any commitments can be given to the Senate today around the potential for job losses and the consequent loss of what is a considerable body of corporate knowledge that is held by staff in the various registries of the courts that are affected by this legislation.