Wednesday, 8 February 2023

Magistrates Court of Victoria

Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (12:07): (18) My question is to the Attorney-General. Attorney, the Productivity Commission’s Report on Government Services confirms that Victoria’s Magistrates Court has the worst criminal case backlog in the country. More than 25,200 criminal matters are waiting more than 12 months to be heard in Victoria, compared to fewer than 6300 in New South Wales. Attorney, given these massive backlogs and the distress that these delays cause to victims as well as the accused, why has the Labor government funded only one additional magistrate this financial year?

Jaclyn SYMES (Northern Victoria – Attorney-General, Minister for Emergency Services) (12:08): I thank Ms Crozier for her question and the opportunity to talk about the Magistrates Court and the fantastic job they are doing to get on top of court backlogs, particularly as we are coming out of the pandemic. Thank you for referencing the ROGS data, Ms Crozier. I think for context, if you refer to that report in greater detail, you will acknowledge that it identifies that there are 145 full-time magistrates in Victoria and it says that that is the highest of all jurisdictions based on population and the use of our therapeutic programs.

In relation to court backlogs, it has been a real challenge, but I have been really impressed in my work with the courts. They are continuing to bring to me ideas, innovations and ways to deal with matters pre court so they do not actually end up in courtrooms, for example.

In relation to some of the stats, I can say that despite the challenges of the pandemic the Magistrates Court has managed to drive down its pending case load to 94,445 matters at the end of December, representing a 35 per cent reduction from its peak of matters in December 2020, which coincided with the restrictions due to health measures protecting Victorians from the pandemic.

Of course there is more work to be done, but these rates are clearly demonstrating that we are trending in the right direction. I would really like to thank the Chief Magistrate for her ongoing efforts and those of the courts as they continue to recover. We have appointed many new magistrates to the court, and they bring great enthusiasm and experience and have really hit the ground running at the start of this year, which is demonstrating that more and more cases are starting to get through our courts. They had a really good year last year, despite some of these challenges.

We have a range of therapeutic programs and specialised courts in our magistrate system to make sure that we are dealing with underlying causes of crime to really make sure that we are addressing recidivism, because one of the leading drivers of our courts is when people continually get in a spiral and come back to court again and again. Some of the highlights I would like to bring to the chamber’s attention are the opening of the two new Drug Courts in Shepparton and Ballarat, the launching of the new Koori Court sites in Wodonga and Wangaratta and the launching of the new federal jurisdiction for Koori Courts, with 369 matters already initiated and many completed, so there are significant achievements.

There are a lot of programs. I think the online Magistrates Court is something that I have spoken about in this chamber before, but for the benefit of new members it is an opportunity for magistrates to be able to be flexible and hear matters online. There are a lot of appropriate matters that people do not actually have to come into court for. Quite often that is where you do not get through matters, because something comes up or there is an adjournment and you have got to come back another day. All of that contributes to backlogs and pressure on our courts. The online Magistrates Court gives the ability for a magistrate to sit in front of a computer and deal with a matter regardless of which part of the state it is in, so it is really helping to get through those all-important cases, and they are really making inroads in the criminal list, which is also – (Time expired)

Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (12:11): Attorney, thank you for that response. You did reference the backlogs, and my supplementary question is: given that Victoria has the worst court backlogs in Australia, how many months or years will it take for Victoria’s Magistrates Court criminal case backlog to be reduced to no worse than the national average?

Jaclyn SYMES (Northern Victoria – Attorney-General, Minister for Emergency Services) (12:11): I thank Ms Crozier for her follow-up question. This is a question that I get regularly, and I cannot put a date on when we will return to prepandemic levels or indeed some of the references that you want to make with national averages, because you cannot compare us with different jurisdictions that actually have different data and different ways that they register different matters. It does not necessarily always correlate. Complex matters take longer. Simple matters take –

Members interjecting.

Jaclyn SYMES: I cannot predict which matters are going to be hitting the courts in the next while. It is a moving set of circumstances based on the matters that come before the court. There is not that one matter equals this amount of minutes, so you cannot forecast exactly how long it is going to take to get through individual matters. You can have a rough idea, and at the start of – (Time expired)