Statutes Amendment (Judicial Registrars) Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 19 October 2016.)

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (11:39): I rise to speak on the Statutes Amendment (Judicial Registrars) Bill 2016 and indicate that I will be proposing amendments which will provide, in the alternative, an option for the government to consider. I also note that the Attorney-General has provided copies of foreshadowed amendments and a summary explanation of them in the last couple of days, and I have reviewed those and will be consenting to the same.

Essentially, the bill—which amends our District Court Act, Magistrates Court Act, Oaths Act, Supreme Court Act and Youth Court Act—is to accommodate a new judicial office in each of the Supreme, District, Magistrates and Youth courts to allow for the appointment of a new judicial registrar. We have been provided with a briefing—thank you—from the Attorney-General's Department, and have been advised that the background to this has come from former chief magistrate Judge Bolton to appoint a judicial registrar in the Magistrates Court. The idea has been extended in this bill not just to that court but also to the three superior courts.

The information provided by the Attorney most recently confirms that and, although I have not been provided with her letter of request to consider it, it is to be noted that whilst she recommended there was an opportunity to have the office of a judicial registrar in her court, she considered it should be subject to appropriate limitations and she had not specifically identified what the functions of the judicial registrar might be in the Magistrates Court.

So, it is relevant—and again I thank officers from the Attorney-General's Department—that if one is to consider the appointment of a judicial registrar, what is the situation that this office enjoys in other jurisdictions—either commonwealth or other states and territories? What are the terms of their appointment, functions, powers and the like? Probably most importantly, what restrictions would there be on that office?

In that regard, again I confirm that the Attorney-General's Department, under letter from the Attorney-General, has provided the summary of jurisdictions. There is no reference in it to Western Australia, I might add, so I can only assume at this point that, other than in the Western Australian division of the Family Court of Australia, they do not actually have judicial registrars in their state courts. Nevertheless, a comprehensive list of what applies in other jurisdictions was provided.

At first blush, when one looks at the bill I think it is fair to say, given the extent of the powers proposed under this regime, that it is not unreasonable to assume that this is the government's cheap option: how do they deal with outstanding judgements, how do they get rid of the disastrously long lists of people waiting to have trials, particularly in our District Court in South Australia? I still think that is a pretty fair assessment, given the extent of responsibility proposed under this bill for judicial registrars in each of the proposed four courts. That does not necessarily mean it is not a good idea or that there is an opportunity for the office of judicial registrar, which is cheaper than a judge to appoint, and provide for both during their employment and on their death in terms of entitlements for widows and the like.

There are also a number of duties in the administrative area where they can provide support to the progress of matters in the courts which are reasonably to be in their area of responsibility and which do not necessarily require the consideration of a judge. Usually, these are in the areas where a consent has been reached between the parties in dispute, and it is the recording of final orders to complete a matter, to attend to the distribution and allocation of trials and other administrative duties, such as operating as a mediator or dealing with the conciliation generally and proper advancement of cases through the courts in other than contested disputes.

There are a lot of things that judicial registrars do in other jurisdictions which quite reasonably could be undertaken and which could still assist this government in what has been, unfortunately, a major blowout in the timely administration of justice in this state. With all the will in the world of the Chief Justice as the head of the Courts Administration Authority, unless there are appropriate resources, modern equipment and adequate facilities in which to work, that is a very difficult ask.

I am not going to repeat the litany of areas of deficiency where I think the government has failed in this area, but I will say this: if you do not operate in a reasonable environment to actually conduct the administration of justice and have a decent court facility in which you can properly fit advanced electronic equipment and IT, which is in the modern era and not have to try to retrofit buildings that were built two centuries ago, then you have a chance of having a decent justice system.

If you do not have enough judges to actually administer work, and if vacancies are not filled, then there has to be some work done to try to plug the gap. To some degree, that is what this bill does. This bill provides a cheaper version of someone in each of these courts to be able to do some of that work which, on the face of it, will free up judges to do other matters.

The reason I do not think the government has been entirely bona fide about the appointment of these people is that, if they were genuine in saying, 'We respect the judicial officers who are there as judges and acknowledge that those persons have a reasonable entitlement,' particularly as they are going to be asked to deal with serious matters and contested issues and not just bring in a cheap option to do that, then they would have limited the areas of responsibility that would be available and the workload to be undertaken by these new judicial registrars, but they have not. They have brought in the cheap option under a proposal to do all the work that judges do.

I think that is very telling of the government's disrespect for the important positions that are undertaken. If they come to this place and say, 'There are judicial registrars in a number of other jurisdictions around the country,' then they would have at least followed suit. We have just finished debating a bill where we talk about bringing the Solicitor-General's terms of appointment into line with other jurisdictions, yet it seems to me that when the government first floated this bill and sought submissions there was wild and consistent rejection of some of the ambit positions that the government put.

It has been reined back a bit, but I suggest, if the government were genuine in saying, 'We are looking around the country as to what other jurisdictions have done and we are taking the best from it and we are going to create this position here,' then they would have done so in a fixed-term position without requiring that the person in this office should deal with contested matters or be in a position where they are dealing with contempt or imprisonment matters. That would have been genuinely in line with the rest of the country.

If we were to look at other jurisdictions, and I think it is reasonable that we do for the purposes of my claim in this regard, we should look at the Family Court of Australia, which has had the positions of judicial registrars for decades which, I suggest, work very well. They also have a federal jurisdiction which provides for circuit judges and they have registrars. They do not have masters, as we have in our Supreme Court, but they have a Chief Justice, they have judges, they have a circuit court judge and judges of their circuit court, and they have judicial registrars and registrars, and they all undertake important work.

What is important, for the purpose of this exercise, is that those judicial registrars cannot do a number of things. They cannot deal with children who are taken out of the country. They cannot deal with transfer of cases. They cannot deal with applications for medical procedures which, sadly, often deal with applications for sterilisation of people with intellectual disabilities and the like. They cannot deal with property matters that are over $2 million in value and obviously they cannot deal with contempt matters and declarations of vexatious litigants and the like. So, there are a number of areas which are kept exclusively for judges. I think it is fair to say that those areas are at the sharp end of the pencil, being the more serious of matters.

They can deal with some contested matters in the property sense, as I say, at a lower level and they can deal with disputes in relation to the residence and contact arrangements for children and the like. They can deal with child maintenance orders and so on. They have a certain area of jurisdiction, but they are not judges. If that were a jurisdiction to be followed, then we would certainly have thought that was one that had the most experience and one that could have been consistently applied.

If we go to the New South Wales jurisdictions, their judicial registrars do not and cannot deal with criminal jurisdiction matters, and they cannot deal with contempt matters. The Northern Territory has the Work Health Court of the Northern Territory which, I am advised by the department, has limitations on work that they can do. In Queensland, similarly, there are significant limitations on the powers for the judicial registrars in both their Land Court and Magistrates Court.

If the government says, 'We want to be able to appoint these people in our courts; they can do useful work,' then I suggest to the government that they can have two options. They can either appoint judicial registrars as tenured appointments and allow them to do contested matters, or they can have a fixed term of appointment and only deal with uncontested matters, as a restriction on the work that they do. As I have acknowledged, that will assist in the administration and, hopefully, the smoother operation of each of these courts, but it should not be extended to doing contested work or dealing with criminal matters involving imprisonment. Those are the two options, and we suggest that the government should elect one or the other.

I have indicated that we will be proposing amendments in both those terms. Both will commence in clause 11, and I propose to move the first of the tabled amendments as a test provision. If the government does not elect either in full, the amendments will be pursued in another place. I only mention that because of the way in which I propose to move only the amendment on each alternate as amendment No. 1 and by way of explanation, not by way of threat, of what we will be doing in another place.

Why is it so important for the judicial officers to be thoroughly independent? I mentioned this in the preceding bill, and I will repeat it because it is even more critical in this bill. We have a separation of powers, a fundamental principle. I can remember, in dealing in this place with the celebration of the anniversary of the Magna Carta, setting out the importance of the separation of powers. It is a matter I also raised at the recent Australian Bar Association conference in Melbourne, that is, recognising that, when we have the appointment of judges and judicial officers to deal with contested matters, we need to appreciate that they are going to be determining matters to which the Crown, the State of South Australia and the government or its departments are a party.

Obviously, in criminal matters, the Crown is a party to all of them because it has the exclusive prosecuting role—either through the DPP, sometimes through the police, sometimes through agencies such as the Environment Protection Authority and the like—to prosecute these matters on behalf of the people of South Australia. So, the Crown is a party. Secondly, it is a party in a whole area of administrative determinations that are under review in a number of our courts, some of which have recently been brought in under the new South Australian SACAT model to deal with, but others are still left in independent tribunals and courts.

Third (if I can put them into three large categories) is the number of cases in the civil area of jurisdiction in our courts in which the government or one of its departments or agencies is either the plaintiff or the respondent. Frankly, I was staggered to read a letter from the Attorney-General, received in the last couple of months in which he answered a question I had asked him a year ago; that is: how many active civil cases are there in South Australia to which the government or its departments or agencies are a party? The answer was 800.

I thanked him for the answer—better late than never—but it was staggering to me that we have a David and Goliath situation in South Australia in so much of our litigation in our civil courts to which the government is a party. I get used to it because since I have been in here every time I have asked for a contentious document under freedom of information it seems that I am whisked off to the District Court to appeal against an Ombudsman's direction to tell the government or one of its agencies to give me a document.

Nevertheless, I was staggered to see that level of litigation going on, and that is outside of the criminal matters and outside of the criminal compensation matters. I hate to think what it is to date. Some of them, of course, are huge and in the public profile, like the litigation that the state government has taken against SA Health Partners with respect to the build of the new Royal Adelaide Hospital—the most expensive building in the world, apparently. Nevertheless, under a notice of breach, proceedings were instituted and there are cross applications going on in those proceedings for breach in respect of claims against the government.

We have massive litigation like that involving an army of lawyers and counsel who are battling it out between government and a corporate joint venture arrangement over taxpayers' money being spent in every level, not just to build the building, but now to fight over it while it sits down there with its lights on and no patients. They are the really public ones that people read about, but there is also a whole lot of other litigation going on, in which the government is supposed to act as a model litigant and is also in dispute with citizens or entities in South Australia.

I am very concerned when the government comes along to the parliament, in this case via the Attorney-General, to present the appointment of judicial registrars in each of its courts, which is going to include a power to hear contested matters, of which it is a party in hundreds. I am very concerned, because if ever there were a situation where the rule of law should apply, the separation of powers should apply, and the independence of the judiciary should apply, it is in the circumstances where the government has an interest in proceedings before a judge, or, in this case, a judicial registrar who is going to come up for reappointment at the end of what is now to be a seven-year term proposed in this legislation.

I am very concerned, and the people of South Australia should be concerned. This is not just a question of looking at this at first blush and seeing whether the government is just trying to deal with the chaos in its courts by having a cheap level of judges be appointed: it is much more serious than that. It is much more serious because the government is asking us to support the appointment of a new regime of judicial officers, namely, judicial registrars, who will be hearing contested cases to which they are a party, and those judicial officers, if they want reappointment at the end of their seven-year term, will need to go back to present, obviously, for consideration by the Attorney-General.

That is completely unacceptable to us on this side of the house. It places those judicial officers in a position where they may feel under some pressure, if they want to keep their job, not to upset the government. It may be that they would not give a certain judgement—that is a possibility—that might upset or anger the government. It may be that they do make a finding against the government in a certain case, but they may not want to publish reasons which might humiliate or upset or anger the government.

That is not a situation that anybody in that position should be faced with. So, we say to the government that you can make a choice. If you want to have judicial registrars who work with certain functions in other jurisdictions in the country for the benefit of your state courts, which service our South Australians, then you have a choice: you either have a tenured position if you want them to do contested matters, or you have a fixed term if you want them to do administrative matters and not contested or contempt proceedings, or criminal proceedings involving imprisonment. That is the choice.

I do not think we could be fairer than that. If we were not to ask the parliament to think very carefully about this and reject the model that has been presented by the government, without one or other of these amendments, then we would be failing in our duty to support the government when they come up with good ideas and reject the government when they come up with bad ideas, or assist to amend ideas where they are on the right track but have badly deviated. We would be utterly failing in our duty to the parliament.

I ask those who are going to vote on this bill to consider that sincerely. The Attorney-General, I think, has dismissed these options already, but I might be surprised. It might be that he will accept our amendments. If he does not, then there will be another place to consider them. I note that, in the period of consultation on this matter, the government have heeded some advice I think from the Chief Justice, from the briefing that I received, that there should not be an appointment, reappointment or even terms of wages and the like set without the appointment being also supported by the chief of that court.

Whether it is the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the Chief Judge of the District Court, the Youth Court head or the Chief Magistrate, they need to provide their concurrence with the appointment, reappointment or terms of employment of the judicial registrar, and that is good. That is an important addition. It should have been there in the first place. The fact that the Attorney-General tried to get away with him making these appointments, in the circumstances that he is asking us to support, without that concurrence, I think is disgraceful; nevertheless, at least at the Chief Justice's request that has been changed.

The second issue considered was that even the five years that were floated should be extended out to seven years, so there has been some improvement, but this is not in a form that should be acceptable to this parliament at present. I leave members with the crucial tenet that judicial independence, and particularly the independence from the executive arm of government, is fundamental to what we believe in in this state, what we fight for and what permeates our constitution, and it ought not be offended by this type of legislation just for the government to clean up a mess.

In respect of the amendments the Attorney has also tabled and had foreshadowed in correspondence in recent days, my understanding is that amendments Nos 1, 2, 4 and 6 largely deal with administrative matters in respect of allowing for a judicial registrar to hold a compatible, non-judicial office in that relevant court. Secondly, amendment No. 3 tidies up the provision that a judicial registrar is a judicial officer of the Supreme Court and, in respect of amendment No. 5, the definition of 'registrar' does not include a judicial registrar. I think they purely deal with machinery, given the variation of provisions in those respective acts, so we will consent to those. With those comments, I am happy to move to the second reading.

Mr TARZIA (Hartley) (12:09): I also rise today to speak to the Statutes Amendment (Judicial Registrars) Bill 2016. There is a quote that has been brought to my attention, and I wish to draw the house's attention to it. It was raised by the Law Society in its recent submission. In an address in 2007, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, observed:

The rule of law requires that the courts have jurisdiction to scrutinise the actions of government to ensure that they are lawful. In modern society the individual citizen is subject to controls imposed and enforced by the executive in every aspect of life. The authority to impose most of these controls comes, directly or indirectly, from the legislature. The citizen must be able to challenge the legitimacy of executive action before an independent judiciary.

I will come back to that. What is thoroughly raised in debating this kind of legislation, as the member for Bragg has pointed out, is the concept and the principles and statements concerning judicial independence, and how important it is that when one does hear contested matters. It requires a level of unfettered discretion and independence. We know that judicial independence is certainly central to the doctrine of the separation of powers. We know that the appearance of independence, no less than the reality, is extremely important, and that tenure and remuneration are crucial to that judicial independence and that it is particularly independent from the executive arm of government.

Judges in any sense should never feel that if they do not please the government of the day their salaries may be at risk. The member for Bragg has pointed out, quite importantly, that if tenure in some instances is reduced, then where we have so many cases where the government is a party to proceedings later in life they may interact again, and judges should never feel that if they do not for some reason please the government of the day, their salary may be at risk. An acting judge should arguably not be appointed to avoid making a permanent appointment—that is also a question that is raised. Part-time and probationary appointments, I agree, should be treated with much caution.

By way of background, in October the Attorney introduced the Statutes Amendment (Judicial Registrars Bill) 2016. It amends the District Court Act 1991, the Magistrates Court Act 1991, the Oaths Act 1936, the Supreme Court Act 1935 and the Youth Court Act 1993. The bill effectively creates a new judicial office of judicial registrar, but also takes a recommendation from former chief magistrate, Judge Bolton, to appoint a judicial registrar in the Magistrates Court. It extends this to appoint judicial registrars within the Youth Court, the District Court and also the Supreme Court.

The term of appointment has been mentioned to be seven years. It also allows the removal of the judicial registrar, by recommendation of the Attorney-General, for neglect of duty or dishonourable conduct. It must be with the concurrence of the Attorney and also the Chief Judge. Time and time again this word starting with an E comes up: efficiency. We have been told that these changes are put in place to create efficiencies in the courts, just like when the SACAT was brought in, allowing judicial registrars less complex proceedings with the only statute of limitation being on their inability to impose a custodial sentence. The jurisdiction for these registrars will be prescribed in the regulations and rules of the bill.

Unfortunately, I have to say that this certainly appears, at least at face value, to be a cheap judge measure, with an aim to fill positions within the courts which perhaps may be empty. Unfortunately, this government seems, time and time again, to be treating our courts and our legal system as a liability, when in fact it needs to be treating it as an asset. A transparent legal system, and a productive, working legal system, is fundamental to our democracy and to transparency in this state.

Perhaps if the government had not wasted money in other areas in the economy, by now we would have had a new courts precinct. We would not have courts in the city that, to be quite frank, are a disgrace in terms of the way that they leak. The way that some of these facilities have been mismanaged by the government is completely unacceptable. It is not good enough. Here we see another cost-cutting measure by the state government—it is not good enough.

The Law Society considers that the bill does not provide for judicial independence in the role of the judicial registrar, and nor does it encourage a high-calibre of applicants, they argue, in these positions due to the short-term nature of their positions. They also argue that the judicial registrar should be limited to considering administrative mediation and consent orders, which are uncontested matters. I note that the federal government has been using a system of judicial registrars for a number of years. These registrars have an unlimited tenure, I am told, and they hear only uncontested matters.

The point that the member for Bragg makes about terms is very effective. We would like to suggest amendments, which I imagine will follow in due course at the relevant stage, to have judicial registrars with either fixed terms for hearing only uncontested matters or no fixed tenure but with the ability to hear contested matters. I sincerely hope that the Attorney will consider these very important proposed changes. I have no doubt that, if they are not considered well in this house, they will be considered in the other place. With those few remarks, I commend the bill to the house.

The Hon. J.R. RAU (Enfield—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General, Minister for Justice Reform, Minister for Planning, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Child Protection Reform, Minister for the Public Sector, Minister for Consumer and Business Services, Minister for the City of Adelaide) (12:16): I thank those who spoke in relation to this bill. There are a couple of very quick things. First of all, this bill has nothing to do with disrespect or treating the courts badly; in fact, this bill comes before the parliament as a direct request from the courts. It is not a matter of me imposing this on them. This is a matter of them having requested this of me, and I am happy to accommodate their request. That is the first point.

The second point is that in the courts presently there are a great many very, very mundane routine activities which are undertaken by judicial officers whose time is very expensive and whose capacity to do more productive work is considerable. The idea here is that, instead of having a Supreme Court judge mucking around with listings or interlocutory applications or other matters of that sort of nature as a matter of course, there should be, particularly in the routine matter, an opportunity for these to be dealt with by a judicial registrar—a perfectly reasonable proposition.

As to the question about whether or not these people should be tenured, I am strongly of the view that these people are doing basically, essentially, routine business of the court. They do need to be legally qualified. These people are much more than glorified special justices. They do need to be people with legal qualifications. They do need to be in a position where, as the bill says, they have at least five years' standing as a legal practitioner. They are offered a period, which is a reasonable period, of employment or appointment, which is, in this instance, seven years.

The suggestion that by reason of them having a term of appointment they will somehow be compromised in dealing with matters before them where the state is a litigant is a completely bogus point. If that point were to have any validity here, I utterly reject it. A complaint has been made by those who raise this point about the fact that we have auxiliaries who have been filling in not on a five-year term or a seven-year term but on a case-by-case basis. Nobody has raised any questions about that and nor should they. There has never been a suggestion that auxiliary judges have done silly or improper things.

I completely reject the notion that in any way these individuals would be compromising their judicial independence by somehow ingratiating themselves to the state in decision-making. To then go on to illustrate that point by picking a large commercial matter, where we have a dispute over the building of a hospital which is worth $1 billion or $2 billion or whatever it is, and say that is an example of the sort of thing these judicial registrars might be confronted with is somewhat ridiculous.

I can assure the house that any significant commercial litigation is not going to be heard and determined by judicial registrars—I can guarantee you that. If we look quickly at section 16C and section 48A, they are both basically doing the same thing. What do they say? They say that what judicial registrars can do is, first of all, subject to the regulations, so we can put in regulations which say that certain things may not be done by them. Secondly, and I would suggest most properly, it is in the hands of the chief judge of the jurisdiction in which the registrar is to be sitting for the chief judge to determine what is or is not suitable for them to do.

That is judicial independence: the court is deciding for itself who the court is going to use and how they are going to use them. It also says that the court can specify this in their rules. Then we go on to say but, notwithstanding what I have just said, a court constituted of a judicial registrar in criminal proceedings may not impose a sentence of imprisonment. More importantly, if they are in the course of proceedings and it comes to their attention that they might ultimately be facing a proposition where they should perhaps be incarcerating somebody, they have to stop and hand the thing over.

There are limits on what they can do, there is an absolute prohibition on imprisonment, and there are such limits as may be set by the head of the jurisdiction, by the rules of the court or, if necessary, by a regulation made by this parliament. I am absolutely confident that they are entirely reasonable constraints on the use to which these registrars might be put. There is something Dickensian about the notion that we should have judges doing minor interlocutory matters and suchlike, particularly in the higher courts.

The other issue worth mentioning is contested matters. Every interlocutory application is a contested matter, in my experience, unless you are really lucky and your opponent falls over, but that is pretty uncommon. You want discovery of something and somebody does not want to give it to you, you go down and you have an argument; that is a contested matter. You want an adjournment of a matter and the other side does not want an adjournment of the matter, they want it to proceed, another contested matter, and so on. The idea that by reference to 'contested matters' you somehow are improving things—what you would be doing is rendering these people completely useless. All they would be are ornaments.

What we want and what the courts want is to have the capacity—and we are talking the head of the jurisdiction, not me—to say, 'Look I've got this person, they are legally qualified, and we, under our rules or by my direction, are satisfied this person is competent to do a particular class of legal work, work done by the court.' That cannot involve imprisonment of an individual, and it may be limited in any way above and beyond that that the head of jurisdiction thinks to be appropriate.

This is an intelligent way of providing assistance to the courts by actually saying to judges and magistrates, who are tenured judicial officers, that as little of their time as possible will be occupied doing what amounts to essentially routine or low-level judicial activities. Of course, the time that they are freed up from doing those things is time they can be spending doing other things which require the judgment of a permanent judicial officer.

I am entirely comfortable with this. I think it delivers what the courts want. I do not believe that there is any risk that the heads of each jurisdiction will be attempting to get judicial registrars to do things that are improper, and it is clear that in any circumstance it is impossible to impose a term of imprisonment. For those reasons, I disagree with the amendments which I saw for the first time this morning.

Bill read a second time.

Committee Stage

In committee.

Clause 1.

Ms CHAPMAN: Attorney, could you please provide, if you have the information today or between the houses, the summary package of a Supreme Court judge and the proposed package of a Supreme Court judicial registrar in income and entitlements?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: The position of a judge is a matter which is the subject of reports by the Remuneration Tribunal. Between the houses, I will find out what the latest determination is, but it is in a public record.

In relation to judicial registrars, given that we do not even have the position yet, I am not aware of there being any settled or even mooted package for these people. Clearly, that is dependent, first of all, on whether we actually get the positions established and, secondly, what degree of seniority, or what degree of range of work, these people are going to be doing. If they are only going to be able to list matters for trial or do things that basically an experienced associate or listing clerk might do, then I imagine their package will be pretty small. If they are going to be allocated more significant duties then I guess the courts would be looking to pitch the package that they are offering these people at a level where they would attract suitable candidates.

There are many steps to go in that. The first step is that the bill gets up and we have a look at what the form of the bill is. If the bill is being completely gutted, they might decide they are not even going to bother doing it, but if the bill gets up in its present form then I imagine the courts will ascertain what they think are reasonable packages, given the degree of responsibility attached to the job, and I imagine that there would then be some conversation with the Treasurer around budgeting for those things in due course. That is definitely a matter for the future and a lot of the answer to that question will be bound up in what this thing looks like when we are finished with it.

Ms CHAPMAN: Given that the government's bill proposes that the court be constituted of a chief justice, puisne judges, masters and judicial registrars, and judicial registrars are under the masters and you have not decided yet how much you are going to pay judicial registrars, I would ask you to provide the information as to masters of the Supreme Court in relation to their income and remuneration package.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Again, I think that is Remuneration Tribunal material, but my recollection is that a master of the Supreme Court has entitlements which, if I am not mistaken, are more or less identical to a District Court judge in terms of their remuneration and their pension entitlements. I believe that the masters of the District Court are more or less in the same position as a magistrate in respect of both of those things. Again, I will confirm that, but I am pretty positive that is the case.

To fill out my answer previously, I imagine that, once the court has a clear idea of the scope of duties these people might perform, they will wind up sizing the job, and therefore the salary package or whatever it is, and that will be some sort of percentage of whatever a judicial officer in that court has. Whether that is 50 per cent of it, or 60 per cent or 40 per cent, I do not know. However, I would be pretty clear on this: wherever masters sit in the hierarchy is above where this person would be sitting. Whatever the masters are getting, these people are going to be getting less than that. How much less? I think it depends on the size of the job.

Ms CHAPMAN: How much money has been budgeted in this financial year for judicial registrars?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: To the best of my knowledge, none, because we do not have the legislation to enable them to be employed.

Ms CHAPMAN: Is there any provision for judicial registrars in any of the forward estimate years?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Again, to the best of my knowledge, no, because we do not have such a thing yet. That is what this is about. I would indicate, though, assuming this passes, I am very confident that the Courts Administration Authority will then engage in a conversation with the Treasury about how many of these people they might think it desirable to engage and at what salary packages.

Ms CHAPMAN: On the information provided, Attorney, in your letter of 27 October 2016, you wrote:

The use of Judicial Registrars would also give the Magistrates and Youth Courts greater flexibility in the conduct of matters which might currently involve the special justices of those Courts.

Could you expand on that? Does that mean they are not going to be used or less used? What is the situation?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I am advised there are some matters at the moment which understandably are too complex for special justices, and by reason of that complexity they are not being heard by special justices now, but they are being heard by judges or magistrates.

Ms CHAPMAN: Like what?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I will try to get some examples. Let me take that on notice. The point is that this is not intended to stop special justices doing whatever they are doing now, it is intended to provide an extra level of support for judges or magistrates over and above that which can be offered by a special justice. We are not pruning special justices back, we are just saying that given the limitations on what a special justice can do, this is a further layer of support for the tenured judicial officers.

Clause passed.

Clauses 2 to 10 passed.

Clause 11.

Ms CHAPMAN: I move:

Amendment No 1 [Chapman–2]—

Page 5, line 9 [clause 11, inserted section 16A(2)]—Delete 'term of appointment (which must be for at least 7 years), the'

This is the first of a number of amendments necessary to require that there be no fixed terms for the new position of judicial registrar but they have the capacity to hear contested matters. By that I mean trials of matters, not adjournment applications, as I think the Attorney quite churlishly put in some rebuttal to the need to have judicial registrars to deal with contested matters. In the event that this amendment fails, I indicate that I will withdraw the balance for the purpose of this House of Assembly hearing.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I oppose this and the other amendments for the reasons I have already explained. As the deputy leader said, clause 11 is an example of a whole series of things.

Amendment negatived.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I move:

Amendment No 1 [AG–1]—

Page 6, after line 3 [clause 11, inserted section 16A]—After subsection (10) insert:

(11) A Judicial Registrar may, with the approval of the Attorney-General and the concurrence of the Chief Judge, concurrently hold office as a member of the Court's non-judicial staff if the non-judicial office is compatible with the judicial office.

Amendment carried.

Ms CHAPMAN: I move:

Amendment No 1 [Chapman–1]—

Page 6, line 29 [clause 11, inserted section 16C(1)]—After 'Subject to' insert 'this section and'

This provides for the first of a tranche of amendments necessary to impose the restriction on jurisdiction that judicial registrars would be able to hear; namely, they would need to be uncontested matters—that is, not trials—to enjoy the opportunity to be appointed for a fixed term, for all the reasons I have said in the contribution to date.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: For the reasons I have explained before, I disagree with the amendment.

Amendment negatived; clause as amended passed.

Clauses 12 to 21 passed.

Clause 22.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I move:

Amendment No 2 [AG–1]—

Page 10, after line 4 [clause 22, inserted section 7AA]—After subsection (10) insert:

(11) A Judicial Registrar may, with the approval of the Attorney-General and the concurrence of the Chief Magistrate, concurrently hold office as a member of the Court's non-judicial staff if the non-judicial office is compatible with the judicial office.

Amendment carried; clause as amended passed.

Clauses 23 to 32 passed.

Clause 33.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I move:

Amendment No 3 [AG–1]—

Page 12, lines 2 to 5 (inclusive) [clause 33(1)]—Delete subclause (1) and substitute:

(1) Section 7(1)—delete subsection (1) and substitute:

(1) The court is constituted of the following judicial officers:

(a) the Chief Justice;

(b) the puisne judges;

(c) the masters;

(d) the judicial registrars

Amendment carried; clause as amended passed.

Clause 34.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I move:

Amendment No 4 [AG–1]—

Page 13, after line 14 [clause 34, inserted section 13I]—After subsection (10) insert:

(11) A judicial registrar may, with the approval of the Attorney-General and the concurrence of the Chief Justice, concurrently hold office as a member of the court's non-judicial staff if the non-judicial office is compatible with the judicial office.

Amendment carried; clause as amended passed.

Clauses 35 to 42 passed.

Clause 43.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I move:

Amendment No 5 [AG–1]—

Page 15, after line 24—After subclause (2) insert:

(3) Section 3, definition of Registrar—after 'Court' insert:

but does not include a judicial registrar

Amendment carried; clause as amended passed.

Clause 44 passed.

Clause 45.

The Hon. J.R. Rau: I move:

Amendment No 6 [AG–1]—

Page 16, after line 37 [clause 45, inserted section 10A]—After subsection (10) insert:

(11) A judicial registrar may, with the approval of the Attorney-General and the concurrence of the Judge of the Court, concurrently hold office as a member of the Court's non-judicial staff if the non-judicial office is compatible with the judicial office.

Amendment carried; clause as amended passed.

Remaining clauses (46 to 49) and title passed.

Bill reported with amendment.

Third Reading

The Hon. J.R. RAU (Enfield—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General, Minister for Justice Reform, Minister for Planning, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Child Protection Reform, Minister for the Public Sector, Minister for Consumer and Business Services, Minister for the City of Adelaide) (12:39): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Bill read a third time and passed.