Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee, , 1:43:06 to 1:45:47
Inquiry into the financial burden on workers pursuing small claims and the objective of making the new court faster and cheaper.
Topics: Workplace relations, Legal aid
Speakers: Speaker 16, Elizabeth Brayshaw, Greg Manning, Senator Marielle Smith
Thank you. Senator Pocock, you have the call. Um I'm giving you an edge to wind up just before 15 minutes.
Yeah, no worries, I should be well within that. Um I just want to follow up, uh Senator Scarr's questioning. Um when I go to that media release of the 23rd of July from the Minister, you refer to both being faster but also cheaper. And that you refer to the fact that sometimes when people take cases, uh the case can cost more than the claim is worth. Do you have any data on costs uh at present for those trying to execute or pursue small claims or even more complex ones in the same way that Senator Scarr has sought data on time?
Senator, um in terms of total cost of cases, I don't have that data, but some of the experiences that we've heard from recent inquiries have been that across different jurisdictions between the federal and the state courts, there can be different filing fees, for example. Uh, and that some uh experience for some stakeholders is that that um is already an expense uh that they're facing uh as well as then feeling that these are quite formal processes that they um need to get legal advice and so the cost of that is part of um the issues that we've heard. But I I would need to take on notice to give you more data. But that's the kind of things that we've heard and and I know have been raised not only in the migrant workers' task force report but um but also more recently and things like the small claims review and the wage theft inquiry earlier.
So on notice. I'd like a picture about how those how that argument around costs is formed and what what kind of costs people get, whether you've got any median or average uh availability, or is it just anecdotes? I'm all for uh timely and cheap access to the law for workers.
And certainly that issue you touched on, Senator, is one of the issues that we're front of mind in terms of working up options because um I haven't got the number, but uh it's a relatively small amount of claims are taken through the small claims process each year, and they and it seems very different from the estimates of wage underpayment in the economy each year. And so there's clearly something happening in terms of um the number of people actually formally deciding to go into court to pursue it that effectively means a lot of people aren't doing that in relation to alleged underpayments.
Well, a lot of people cop a lot of rubbish before they get justice. We know that in relation to sexual harassment or something, the figures of people who actually take something formally, it's very painful, it's expensive, and it takes a lot of time and energy. So thank you for that. I look forward to that answer. I just have some questions about the way in which uh you are proceeding to prepare for the fair uh work court.