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7th ANNUAL AIJA TRIBUNALS CONFERENCE

Brisbane, 10-11 June 2004

Tribunals: Improving Access to Justice?

CONFERENCE PAPERS
ISSN 1448-0824

To access Conference papers: Please click on link to speaker's name (all papers are in rtf format)

PowerPoint presentations - to access these you will need to save them to your computer and open from there.

 

 

THURSDAY 10 JUNE

 

12.30 pm   Registration.

 

1.30 pm     WELCOME AND OPENING (Albert & Queen Rooms)

                    Justice Peter Underwood, Supreme Court of Tasmania, President, AIJA

 

1.40 pm     SESSION ONE (Albert & Queen Rooms)

                    Chair:  Frank Clair, President, Mental Health Review Tribunal Queensland

                    Tribunals, like courts, must:

·   provide parties with a reasonable opportunity to present their case;

·   carefully weigh evidence or material placed before them;

·   interpret and apply the law;

·   expose their reasoning processes to the parties through the provision of reasons for decision; and

·   avoid bias or the appearance of bias.

 

                    So, how do they differ from the courts?

Presenter: Dr Geoff Airo-Farulla, Faculty of Law, Griffith University PowerPoint

 

2.40 pm     Afternoon Tea

 

3.10 pm     SESSION TWO (Albert & Queen Rooms)

                    Chair: Professor Greg Reinhardt, Executive Director, AIJA

                    The role of consensual dispute resolution in tribunals.

                    Presenter: Kay Ransome, Chairperson, Consumer, Trader and Tenancy Tribunal (NSW) PowerPoint

                   Commentator: Tim Olphert, Chairman, Removal Review Authority (NZ)

 

4.10 pm     SESSION THREE (Albert & Queen Rooms)

                    Chair: Justice Garry Downes, President, Commonwealth AAT & COAT

                    Benchbooks for Tribunals – The Next Stage

Presenter: Livingston Armytage, Director, Centre for Judicial Studies, NSW PowerPoint

 NB: comments on this paper are welcome and can be directed to Chris Matthies, Manager, Policy and Research at the Commonwealth Administrative Appeals Tribunal: email: chris.matthies@aat.gov.au

5.00 pm     Close

 

7.00 for      CONFERENCE DINNER – Chifley at Lennons, Albert & Queen Rooms

7.30 pm     Speaker: The Hon Justice Paul de Jersey AC, Chief Justice of Queensland

FRIDAY 11 JUNE

 

9.00 am     SESSION FOUR  (Albert & Queen Rooms)

                                Chair: Anne Coghlan, Deputy President – General, Victorian Civil & Administrative Tribunal

                    Tribunals – A User’s Perspective

                    Presenters: Paul O’Connor, Executive Manager, Common Law and Appeals, Transport Accident Commission, Victoria (Victorian Civil & Administrative Tribunal user) PowerPoint

                    Russell Ensbey, Partner, Lambert & Ho, Solicitors (Commercial & Consumer Tribunal user, QLD) PowerPoint

                    John Stannard, Welfare Rights Centre QLD (Social Security Appeals Tribunal User)

                    Clinton Miles, Office of the Public Trustee Queensland (Guardianship & Administration Tribunal & Mental Health Review Tribunal user)

 

10.15 am   SESSION FIVE A (Albert & Queen Rooms)

                    Chair:  Justice Terry Sheahan, President, Workers Compensation Commission, New South Wales

                    Comparing Processes in the Mental Health Review Tribunals

                    Presenters: Frank Clair, President, Mental Health Review Tribunal Queensland CaseStudy1 CaseStudy2 Comparative Table

Comparative Criteria

                    John Lesser, President, Mental Health Review Board, Victoria

                    Professor Duncan Chappell, President, Mental Health Review Tribunal, New South Wales

 

10.15 am   SESSION FIVE B (George Room)

                    Chair:  Anne Wallace, Deputy Executive Director, AIJA

                    “It’s not Easy being Sessional” - Forum for Sessional Tribunal Members

                    Convenor: Margaret Lothian, Sessional Member, Victorian Civil & Administrative Tribunal

 

11.00 am   Morning Tea

 

11.30 am   SESSION SIX (Albert & Queen Rooms)

                    Chair: Barry Cotterell, Former Chairperson Queensland Building Tribunal

                    Giving the Decision

            Oral Reasons for Decision

            Presenter: Justice Stuart Morris, President, Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal PowerPoint

            Plain English in Decision-Writing

            Presenter: Dr Ros MacDonald, Senior Lecturer, Law Faculty, Queensland University of Technology PowerPoint

 

12.45 pm   Lunch

 

1.45 pm     SESSION SEVEN (Albert & Queen Rooms)

                           Chair: Ann Lyons, President, Guardianship & Administration Tribunal, QLD

                    Eliciting and Evaluating Evidence

                How should Tribunals evaluate the evidence?

                Presenter: Justice James Douglas, Supreme Court, Queensland

                Are Tribunals asking the right questions to get to the facts?

   Presenter: John Logan SC, Barrister, Queensland

                   

2.45 pm     Afternoon Tea

 

3.15 pm     SESSION EIGHT (Albert & Queen Rooms)

               Chair: John Lesser, President, Mental Health Review Board of Victoria

                    Tribunals are part of the executive arm of government but as merit review tribunals they provide decision making and dispute resolution processes between the citizen and the government. What steps are required to ensure that they are truly independent of the executive arm of government?

                    Presenter: Barry Cotterell, Former Chairperson Queensland Building Tribunal, Property Agents and Motor Dealers Tribunal and Retirement Villages Tribunals PowerPoint

 

3.45 pm     SESSION NINE A (Albert & Queen Rooms)

                    Chair: Joan Dwyer, Senior Member, Administrative Appeals Tribunal

                    Are tribunals inquisitorial or do they tend to become adversarial and does it make any difference?

                    Presenters: Professor Robin Creyke, Director of Teaching & Learning, Faculty of Law, Australian National University and Narelle Bedford, Executive Officer, Migration & Refugee Review Tribunals

 

3.45 pm     SESSION NINE B (George Room)

                    Chair:  Professor Greg Reinhardt, Executive Director, AIJA

A Moveable Feast; Identifying Ethical Norms within Quasi-judicial Practice? The development of a uniform theory of tribunal ethics and practice.

                    Presenter: Alison Christou, Research Scholar, Centre for Public, International and Comparative Law, University of QLD, T.C. Beirne Law School

 

4.30 pm                 Close.