COVID-19 Courts Administration Authority

Mr CREGAN (Kavel) (14:57): My question is to the Attorney-General. Can the Attorney please update the house as to how the South Australian justice system has responded to the challenges posed by COVID-19?

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General, Minister for Planning and Local Government) (14:58): Indeed. Thank you very much for the question, because we do need to commend all the agencies that have had to survive COVID and be able to steer the continued services for the public.

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic last year, many in our community were already in the midst of court action. Some, of course, were in the middle of civil lawsuits, some were victims, some were witnesses and some were waiting to have their cases dealt with in criminal trials, and so we needed to deal with some immediate action. The ability to continue these disputes was resolved by implementing a number of initiatives.

Firstly, can I say in acknowledging this that the work of the courts and the judiciary did rise to the challenge in managing this, and I will just report briefly as follows. There was the launch last year of the new CourtSA portal for the civil jurisdiction, which meant that parties in civil proceedings could lodge court documents online without attending in person at a registry. Approximately 30,000 civil transactions have either been initiated or subsequently processed under the new portal.

The Courts Administration Authority also introduced a number of measures last year, some of which have been very successful and may be matters we ultimately consider will remain in place on a permanent basis. Firstly, there's the utilisation of audiovisual links—a different AVL from the previous minister's statement—and teleconferencing to attend court hearings. Also, police AVL suites have been initiated and equipment for dealing particularly with overnight arrests. There is work going on with the corrections department to provide facilities there for prisoners to also access AVL within a confidential environment.

We are enabling parties to agree to adjournments and consent orders by email, the use of Webex in the higher courts for remote court attendance—that's particularly important in remote parts of South Australia for parties and witnesses in civil trials, as well as defendants and their solicitors during sentencing matters—the convening of courts over Easter and Christmas in order to hear custody matters by telephone or Microsoft Teams, additional courtrooms for jury trials and allowing jurors to sit both within and outside the jury box. My unhelpful suggestion of a double-deck for those wasn't taken up, I have to say; nevertheless, we have had to reconfigure courtrooms and obviously protect the safety of the jurors.

We have committed over $15 million to upgrade particularly the audiovisual link technology, and I can say that this has been enormously appreciated by both the courts and all those in our community who use the courts. Just recently, members of the government were up in the Riverland and I met with one senior investigative detective. He indicated not only how important this was in a regional area for people awaiting bail applications and things of that nature but how helpful it had been, and he was encouraging us to continue those services.

We are doing some further upgrades. We have extended and upgraded a number of courts in the Sir Samuel Way Building, which deals with the bulk of our criminal and jury trials, and additional work is being undertaken. All this of course assists with our jobs policy to ensure that we give local IT workers and also local tradespeople the opportunity to be part of the provision of continued services to our community and also, of course, employment particularly in small business.

I thank the courts, the judiciary and those in the Courts Administration Authority for quickly attending to these matters. The response has been incredible and the applications will be of benefit way into the future.