Page 3013 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 23 August 2005
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Another good example is the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, which, with a panel of generalist and specialist members, is able to resolve issues across a broad range of legislative schemes and subject matters. Again, the Registrar-General’s Office administers legislation covering land titles, birth records, business names and rental bonds all through a single office.
In this context, I refer again to the comment coming out of our extensive review process that in the ACT it is not possible to provide the services we want through small, standalone, oversight agencies. The structure provided in this bill is broad and flexible. It is not prescriptive; rather, it sets up a framework within which the members of the commission will be able to develop strategies and relationships that enable them to effectively meet the objectives set out in the bill. Instead of constricting the members of the commission by detailing how they should do their work, the provisions in the bill allow them to bring their collective expertise to the task of determining what would be, within broad limits, the best course of action in relation to a particular matter or group of matters.
I think it is important to acknowledge that the people we will appoint to the positions within the human rights commission will be competent, energetic and highly motivated people. It is important to place them within a working framework that supports them but indicates as well that we as a community have confidence in their professionalism and their expertise. This is particularly the case when they will be working together as a commission, where they will have fellow members to consult with as to appropriate strategies and systems. Each member will be able to receive feedback from the other members and place their work in the context of the whole of the work of the commission.
Some people have expressed concern about the lack of statutory time limits in the bill. To those who are concerned about the time taken to deal with complaints, I would point out that the structure in this bill requires the commission to deal with complaints promptly and efficiently and to report regularly to complainants. There is ample scope within the legislative framework in this bill for the commission to establish benchmarks for particular types of complaints and to make a public commitment to them. Those timeframes can then be publicly reported against by the commission in the way that other agencies report their activities against significant benchmarks.
However, commissioners will not be prevented by arbitrary time limits from giving complex matters the extended consideration they need. This bill avoids a range of problems associated with setting time limits for complaints handling. In the first place, it is difficult to specify an appropriate length of time. A period that allows the consideration of complex matters will give the impression that even the simplest of issues should be allowed to be extended for that amount of time. A short period may be fine for the simple matters but may place undesirable pressure on staff where complex issues are under consideration, leading to insufficient attention being given to them as the matter is rushed to a conclusion.
Another problem with time limits is how to make them effective. Currently there is a time limit of 60 days for the discrimination commissioner to decide whether or not a complaint should be dismissed on one of several specific grounds. However, the time limit does not apply to the total time for investigation and conciliation of a complaint if it
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