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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-04-08 Daily Xml
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LEGAL PRACTITIONERS GUARANTEE FUND

Mrs REDMOND (Heysen) (16:08): At this point of the afternoon all I want to do is say that the people who were named by the Attorney-General in his completely unwarranted and appalling attack in response to the last Dorothy Dixer of the day need to have the record clarified so that they can have their names somewhat cleared by this parliament; although, clearly, if the Attorney-General was prepared to go out of this parliament and say what he said, he would find a great many people after him.

Of course, we already have an Attorney-General who has spent more time in court as a witness or a party to proceedings than he ever has as a practitioner. Can I say, at the outset, that legal costs—

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker: I do not recall any trial in which I have been a party.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: That is not a point of order, and the Attorney will refrain from interjection.

Mrs REDMOND: I want to put on the record the reality of the matters about which the Attorney was speaking as question time finished, and it is this—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: Cheating and overcharging.

Mrs REDMOND: The Attorney accuses the legal profession of having a culture of cheating and overcharging, and I would agree with him that sometimes they have been known to, and it is something I have been very angry about on occasions in legal practice. For the most part, they have not been. Let me inform the Attorney that I was at one stage lecturing the graduate diploma on the issue of costs and ethics. I was invited to do that because I am well known in the profession for having very strict standards about these things. What the Attorney did this afternoon was entirely appalling, inappropriate and unwarranted.

The situation is that our Legal Profession Bill has been held up over a debate between the two sides in this chamber about the guarantee fund. In particular, a part of that debate is to do with the ability of people who make a claim against the guarantee fund to have their costs paid, in addition to whatever they have lost from a solicitor's trust account. That is the situation. Indeed, the Attorney and his cohort so opposed the idea that costs might be paid that the matter had to go all the way up to the court, and Justice Debelle made an order saying that, no, clearly the guarantee fund can pay out not only what people have lost, but their reasonable costs.

Consequently, they were about to prepare all their invoices for costs, and so on, and it happened that Mr Andrew Goode ran into one of the people who has been charged with assessing these matters, and that person said, 'Rather than spend all the time and effort, and obviously more money, which would be chargeable, in preparing a bill that only accords with what you are going to charge, send us'—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

Mrs REDMOND: —'a global account, including the warts and all matter.' If the Attorney had ever practised law, he would know that, when you are practising, you have to keep a record of everything you do; not just everything that is chargeable, but every single thing you do. We are taken to risk management classes in order to be taught to always keep a paper record so that we know exactly—moment by moment—what we have done on any file. That is exactly what all these lawyers have done: they have kept an accurate record of every conversation with me, everything they have done related to the case—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The Attorney will cease interjecting.

Mrs REDMOND: —never with any intention of claiming against the fund for that amount. They were never, ever going to claim against the fund for those amounts.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: But they did; they submitted it.

Mrs REDMOND: They submitted it because the officer in charge of the accounts at the guarantee fund said, 'Don't bother to go to all that trouble; just send us all of your records and we will make the decision about a global figure.' If the Attorney-General had ever practised, he would also know that it is quite common in legal practice to come to a global figure on costs, because it is cheaper at the end of the day for both sides, and for the client, to be invited to submit a global figure, rather than go through the detailed costing process. Having been invited by the Attorney's officers—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: No, not by me.

Mrs REDMOND: —by the Attorney's officers—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: She's not in my office; she's at the Law Society.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, the Attorney-General! You will have an opportunity.

Mrs REDMOND: And who do they report to? You told the House of Assembly this afternoon that you have to sign off on it.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: That's right, and I wouldn't.

Mrs REDMOND: You wouldn't, even though they had invited these very same people to put in a global figure. They were invited, Attorney, to send these accounts, warts and all. There was no suggestion of overcharging. There was no attempt on any of their parts to claim these amounts. They were invited to send the whole lot, warts and all. They did, and now you attack them for it unreasonably and unjustifiably.

Mr Pengilly: What a disgrace.

Mrs REDMOND: You are a disgrace of an attorney-general.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Everyone just calm down.

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