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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2011-02-24 Daily Xml
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LEGAL PROFESSION REFORM

Mr ODENWALDER (Little Para) (14:08): My question is to the Attorney-General. Can he inform the house on any updates to the proposed national legal profession reform?

The Hon. J.R. RAU (Enfield—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General, Minister for Justice, Minister for Urban Development and Planning, Minister for Tourism, Minister for Food Marketing) (14:09): I thank the honourable member for his question. As members may know, there has been floating around the place for some time various proposals about the introduction of a uniform national framework for management of the legal profession around Australia. This framework has been worked on through the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General for some time, even though the proposals originated, I believe, from COAG. The proposal essentially involved the establishment of a seamless profession across Australia, and certain arrangements were mooted which were directed towards consumer protection and other things of significance.

However, I have to report that, on 13 February this year, when the Premier attended the COAG meeting, South Australia along with Western Australia reserved its position. That does not mean that we will never, ever, under any circumstances be interested in participation. It does mean, however, that for the time being there are sufficient barriers to our feeling comfortable in participating for us not to do so.

I would like to, very briefly, in answer to the honourable member's question, outline some of those issues for the house because it might be of some assistance. The first, very important aspect of it is that the national board that was proposed to run the legal profession did not guarantee any representation, in particular, for the smaller states.

As members would be aware, the population density in Australia is on the eastern seaboard and the number of people who are legal practitioners in Australia, not surprisingly, are also congregated on the eastern seaboard. If it was through sheer numerical distribution, one would expect people from Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland to predominate indefinitely on the national board. That problem was not satisfactorily resolved.

The second issue was the membership of the national board, and the chief justices around the country and, indeed, the legal community around the country, had a concern that a majority of the appointees on the board should be appointees of the profession rather than appointees of the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General. I agree with that proposition because, this is, after all, a professional body attending to the governance of the legal profession, which is something that one would think would be wise to be kept separate from government. In any event, there was no agreement entirely on that, although there tended to be some agreement that a majority should be not appointed by SCAG. However, who should be appointed, and by whom, remained unresolved.

The general model itself remained, it seemed to us, a little bit too top heavy with red tape. The other thing is that the process of admissions was going to be centralised rather than dealt with by each of the states in their own jurisdiction—again a matter that, I think, would be a retrograde step. Incidentally, the cost burden of participation was going to be visited upon new admittees who would have to pay key money, as it were, to become legal practitioners. Again, in my opinion, and that of the government, that was not an appropriate way to fund this model.

I should also add that the Law Society of South Australia did not agree with the proposal, and it needs to be said also that South Australia has probably the smallest proportion of legal firms who operate as national firms of any of the states, with the possible exception of Tasmania. That being the case, and given the fact that the major benefits from this national harmonisation scheme would accrue to the big firms who have people moving across state borders and are able to consolidate trust accounts in a single jurisdiction and so forth, there was very little in the way of benefits for South Australia and a great deal of question marks and problems.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, the member for Bragg and the member for Davenport!

The Hon. J.R. RAU: So, the model that has been floated up until now by the task force—the working group that was established—has not met with our approval and, for the time being, we will not participate. That does not mean if the model changes we won't look at it, nor does it mean that we are closed off to the idea of a national profession. I should add, also, that the Chief Justice of South Australia does not support the proposed model either.

It is, however, the government's intention that the state should not stand still in relation to reform of the legal profession. It would be remembered, I think by members who have been here for a while, that my predecessor, the member for Croydon, attempted some years ago to reform the legal profession governance arrangements in South Australia to bring us into line with the first generation of harmonisation around the country, and due to the attitude taken at that time by the then members of the opposition, it turned out that the bill was unable to pass the upper house and, as a result, we are already one generation behind the rest of Australia in relation to management of the legal profession. So, I wish to indicate to the house that it is my intention—

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I paid tribute to the honourable member a moment ago for his efforts in relation to legal professional reform—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I mentioned to the house that his efforts were ultimately in vain because people in the other place refused to allow his bill to pass. Anyway, let us go on. I want to let the parliament know that it is our intention to get to work immediately on a domestic solution to the question of improving and upgrading the regulation of the legal profession in South Australia.

A working party has been established with members of the Law Society and members of my department who are presently working on producing a model, which we intend to bring to this house, hopefully, towards the middle of this year. I encourage members opposite who are interested in this topic, and I know some of them are, when we get our draft model out there, to have a word to the legal profession—to the Law Society, to the Bar Association—and to ask them whether it is a reasonable solution to the problem, because they are going to be part and parcel of working this product up.

So, I indicate to the house there will be something coming to the parliament probably towards the middle of the year. It will be an attempt for us to bring ourselves as much as possible into the same zone, if I can put it that way, as the other states. It will represent an attempt, once again, after the attempts made by the member for Croydon, to bring us forward in terms of regulation of the legal profession.

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