Page 337 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 1 March 1994
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For example, those exemptions include an applicant who is successful in proceedings. That applicant is generally entitled under this package to the refund of fees which he or she has paid in bringing that application in the court. A person who is legally assisted in the court is similarly not obliged to meet the cost of the fees. There is also provision made in the legislation for multiple applications. A single fee is payable, if the registrar permits that to be the case, where there are a number of applications on similar grounds brought before the court. The point is that all these grounds are the same, in a sense, for all six of these jurisdictions. Of course, we are talking about the Magistrates Court having three jurisdictions - small claims, civil and criminal - but essentially, across the six jurisdictions, we now have, with the passage of these Bills, the one legislative framework and the one set of criteria for deciding whether fees should be waived and on what basis fees should be charged.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I think that we can support the basis of these new fees and I think that they result in a simplicity which is missing in the present package of legislation. The Attorney, in his presentation speech for the AAT (Amendment) Bill, said:
These initiatives are in line with the Government's desire that review by the tribunal should be as inexpensive as is reasonably possible.
This applies also to the other courts, and that is a laudable aim. Naturally enough, the fees that are set by the Government underneath this new structure will be a different matter. They will be a matter that the Assembly will have the power to examine in detail and, if certain amendments are passed in the future, even to amend. I hope that the Government takes the opportunity of pursuing the goal which the Minister stated in that part of his presentation speech - that is, that proceedings before the tribunal and other bodies in the Territory should be as inexpensive as is reasonably possible. It can be achieved only by the way in which the fees are set.
It is very good to see that we have a number of clear exemptions now. I assume that the operation of these Acts will be such that we will see more people entitled to receive exemptions from payment of fees; but, if the Government intends at the end of the day to recover the cost of those exemptions by increasing the general fees which are paid, on average, by an ordinary citizen who seeks to bring proceedings in a court, then perhaps we have merely transferred the cost from one sector to the other. I am not so sure that that is a good idea. I certainly hope that the fee structure we see put in place is one that achieves equity, not just for those who need to have fees exempted but also for those who are in need of the assistance of the court and who are not eligible for some category of exemption.
I note that there is a provision in each of these Bills which is designed to overcome a decision of the Federal Court of Australia. That is a decision in a case called Angus Fire Armour Australia Pty Ltd v. Collector of Customs. The provisions, which in the AAT Bill appear as new section 59B, are a little bit hard to understand, a little bit obscure. The Attorney might be happy to explain to the Assembly exactly what is meant by those new provisions which appear in each of these Bills, because the objective being pursued is not particularly explicit.
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