Statutes Amendment (Attorney-General's Portfolio No 3) Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading (resumed on motion).

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) (18:04): Very briefly on this, the deputy leader indicated broad support for this, for which I am grateful. She did raise a number of questions about the issue of the Deputy Chief Magistrate. Can I make it crystal clear, and I put it on the record, that there is no issue about Mr Cannon. He is the Deputy Chief Magistrate. It is not my intention nor the government's intention that he cease being Deputy Chief Magistrate during the term of his office as a magistrate.

This is simply a question of whether or not, beyond Mr Cannon's tenure, there continues to be in the Magistrates Court a designated, distinctly appointed and distinctly set out position of deputy, unlike in the District Court and the Supreme Court. What happens in the other courts is that they make arrangements about whoever is going to be acting in the absence of the presiding member of the court, and those arrangements are done in a relatively informal and flexible way. They are not done by there being a deputy chief justice or a deputy senior judge of the District Court.

I have spoken to both the previous chief magistrate and to the current Chief Magistrate, both of whom say that it would be ideal from an administrative point of view if there were no particular role of deputy at all and they could just allocate additional administrative functions here and there, depending on where the magistrate was working. The Magistrates Court is a decentralised court, so you might have administrative functions in a number of different places in the state.

If the opposition is of the view that they do not want the five-year appointment, which I am not seeking to make—that will be in the hands of the Chief Magistrate, so it is not the parliament or the executive interfering with the judiciary in any way—I am open to having a conversation about whether we completely get rid of the designation of Deputy Chief Magistrate altogether, provided we provide a backup whereby if the Chief Magistrate is on holidays or something there is an appropriate method by which there can be a seamless filling of her responsibilities during her absence so that, when she returns, she can get back to her duties in an orderly fashion. I am open to that conversation between the houses.

I want to completely reject any suggestion that there is anything sinister or concealed about this. There is no secret that there is an anomaly between this court and the other two higher courts. I do not know of any other court, including the Employment Tribunal, which has a formal deputy of the court. We are saying that it is reasonable for the Magistrates Court to be managed in the same way as the District Court and the Supreme Court. That is basically the proposition.

Personally, I do not think there needs to be a formal position of Deputy Chief Magistrate at all, but if there has to be, let it be one that can be effectively managed by the Chief Magistrate from time to time and let him or her, as the case may be, run their court however they want to run their court. That is the point. I emphasise again that Mr Cannon will not be affected by this, and I think we have already drafted it in such a way so that it cannot affect Mr Cannon, but if there is any ambiguity about that I am happy to put that beyond doubt. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

At 18:09 the house adjourned until Tuesday 31 October 2017 at 11:00.