Wednesday, 9 February 2022

Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal

Report 2020–21

Dr BACH (Eastern Metropolitan) (17:37): I am keen to speak this afternoon on the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal’s most recent annual report, which was recently tabled in this place. In particular what we learned from that report was the scale of the backlog that we are facing. I am not going to go back quite as far as my friend, but I will go back just a few years to the election manifesto of the Labor Party in 2014, which argued very forcefully that the incredibly small backlog at that time was an appalling thing and that Victorians were being denied access to justice. We hear in this place repeatedly that the mother of all ills is COVID. Of course what has happened over the last two years has exacerbated the scale of our backlogs, not only in VCAT but also across all our courts. But the backlog was growing and unacceptable even before the pandemic hit our shores. Like I have said previously, I have been gratified at least by the verbal responses that I have received in this place from the Attorney-General, noting the fact of the matter, which is that this scale of backlog is utterly unacceptable.

VCAT is such an important body in our broader judicial system. It was the Kennett government of course, under the outstanding Attorney-General Jan Wade, which established VCAT. In my mind the world’s greatest scholar on lower courts and tribunals is the British scholar Dr Jennifer Davis. She calls lower courts and tribunals like VCAT ‘a poor man’s system of justice’, and she talks about these as a working-class resource. The whole idea of VCAT is to have quick, accessible justice for people from all walks of life, and yet at the moment people cannot have all manner of really serious matters heard. In the report in particular I was so saddened to read about what we are seeing on the residential tenancies list, which has struggled most at this time. Some of the changes through the COVID-19 Omnibus (Emergency Measures) Act 2020 only exacerbated those problems.

There are issues of technology at VCAT. Many matters today are being dealt with at VCAT over the phone, on a conference call. So there is the tribunal member, there are legal representatives on the line and the member of the public who is bringing a particular matter is on the line as well. Now, people from all walks of life go to VCAT, as I say. Of course some of our fellow Victorian citizens—many at the moment—are experiencing challenges with mental health: drugs and alcohol, perhaps experiencing homelessness. These are things the tribunal members must take into consideration. You cannot properly take these matters into consideration when you are on a conference call, for goodness sake, and yet the Andrews Labor government seems determined to take ongoing steps to exacerbate the problem rather than to remedy it. I refer to the recent decision just last weekend of the Andrews Labor government to renew work-from-home orders. We must get our friends the legal profession back to work on site.

The manual processes at VCAT are very much concerning when we are thinking about the scale of the backlog, which means so many of our fellow Victorians simply cannot access justice right now. VCAT uses manual processes and paper files. Some members of this place are aware that the Supreme Court of Victoria has a perfectly good e-filing system called RedCrest. There has been a trial at VCAT called Project Felix, trying to move from paper to digital systems. These problems have been spoken about by those in our legal profession for years and years. Of course the pandemic and the heavy-handed restrictions of the Labor government have made these problems worse, but now, finally, surely the government must act to give VCAT the resources that it needs.

Finally, and again this is a matter that was directly touched upon in the report, our backlogs in VCAT are only being made worse by the fact that we have so few tribunal members. I am looking for the exact number. Last year there were 20 fewer members than in the year before. So again, if you are not going to update the VCAT’s systems, if you are not going to allow VCAT and our other courts to get back to work carrying out important matters in person, at a minimum appoint more members. This is not a matter that will find its way onto the front pages of the newspapers, but it is critical to so many Victorians—especially those experiencing disadvantage.