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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-09-22 Daily Xml
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WORKCOVER CORPORATION

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg) (15:45): Given the government's care of workers, I ask this question of the Attorney-General: will all prosecutions involving serious criminal offences arising from WorkCover claims now be prosecuted by the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions? WorkCover alleges that it has spent more than $700,000 on prosecution costs in the case of Thompson v Duffin. The case has been thrown out by the Full Court of the Supreme Court on the grounds that the prosecution, which was directed by WorkCover and not by the DPP, acted improperly. The justices of the Supreme Court identified in their judgment that the case bore all the hallmarks of a win-at-all-costs approach and that WorkCover has no prosecuting guidelines such as those which are almost universally applicable to state prosecuting authorities and which are designed—

The Hon. P.F. CONLON: On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

Ms CHAPMAN: It's in the judgment.

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. P.F. CONLON: If I did want all that information, I would read the judgment. I thank the member for Bragg for that, but it is not necessary to explain the question.

The SPEAKER: I think the member for Bragg has gone beyond the explanation required to make the question intelligible. The Attorney-General.

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON (Croydon—Attorney-General, Minister for Justice, Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Minister for Veterans' Affairs) (15:47): In fact, this question was asked by the member for Bragg when the house last sat.

Ms Chapman: I asked a different question.

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: Well, a different question but a similar question. I have started reading the judgment in the Thompson case. I share her concerns. I really do share her concerns. The prosecution was done by the private law firm Johnson Winter & Slattery. The judgment is a condemnation of their methods. I think that WorkCover would be well advised to look towards the Crown to do future prosecutions. I think that policy change suggests itself in the judgment.

I, too, share her concerns. When I first came to office as Attorney-General, the Crown thought that there was a move to privatise their work, to farm it out to private legal firms; in fact, many members of the Crown Solicitor's Office seemed pessimistic about their future. I never entertained for a moment privatising the work of the Crown Solicitor's Office. My view is that the Crown Solicitor's Office does an outstanding job and that any well-run government would rely on in-house government lawyers who take a whole-of-government perspective. So—

Ms Chapman: You're recommending the DPP.

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: Sorry? Who is recommending the DPP?

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: For myself, I would have thought it is a job that would go to the Crown rather than the DPP, but I am open-minded about it. WorkCover is an independent statutory corporation, but I am sure it would have learnt its lesson from Johnson Winter & Slattery's carriage of this matter.

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