David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Greens do not oppose this bill. But, for the life of us, we cannot work out how it isn't contained in schedule 12 of the miscellaneous provisions act bill. It highlights just how small the Labor Party agenda is when they have to devote as much time as they can in the Senate to a bill that basically deals with the consequential amendments of the New South Wales government changing the name of Local Court magistrates to Local Court judges. That's what's happened.

It is the busiest court in the country. I've appeared in the Local Court. Sometimes you feel like you are in this sardine factory, as they are churning through thousands of cases a day in the New South Wales Local Court. Hats off to those magistrates/judges who deal with the reality of justice, civil and criminal, in this country. We often put District Court judges, Supreme Court judges, Federal Court judges and High Court judges on a pedestal as though that's where justice happens but, actually, no; justice overwhelmingly happens in local courts across the country.

In New South Wales, the Local Court system is the backbone of the criminal justice system and the backbone of the civil justice system, at least for claims within its statutory reach. Those magistrates are sometimes dealing with the reality of a broken society, where, instead of society providing support for people in desperate need, society punishes them for poverty, punishes them for the lack of opportunity, punishes them because of who they are, quite often. I've seen those magistrates—some of them are my friends—seeking to deliver as much justice as they can in that space. It can be really brutal and hard because many of them realise that the coalface of the justice system isn't about justice. It might be about law, but it's so often not about justice—people going to jail because of their poverty, people going to jail because of just terrible circumstances. Of course, some people go into jail because they do bad things. I'm not pretending that doesn't happen as well.

Obviously, we want the Local Court to be able to continue to function when the presiding officer changes from being a magistrate and 'Your Worship' to a judge and 'Your Honour'. Obviously, if there are certain federal laws that confer powers on magistrates and they change their name from magistrate to judge, then we need to make sure that gets tidied up. But to suggest that this is substantive law reform is a nonsense. It should be schedule 7 of a consequential miscellaneous amendments bill, but, because there is such a small legislative agenda from the Labor government, such a small reform agenda from the Labor government, they've desperately tried to have this as a stocking filler. This is the cheap chocolates you buy at Christmas for the uncle you don't like. That's what this is. It's a stocking filler. It's not a real, substantive legislative reform, and we should see it for what it is.