Judiciary - Complaint Mechanism

Statement in Legislative Council 16 October 2025.

Hon Nick Goiran (Leader of the Opposition) (5:19 pm): A breathtaking dereliction of duty is the only way I can explain the answer that came back this afternoon in question time. I wonder whether members of this house are familiar with the process in Western Australia for making a complaint against the judiciary. Members probably are not familiar with the way in which complaints are made in respect of government departments. Maybe one of their constituents has had a concern about a decision made in government. Perhaps that has come to members' attention and probably those members have referred them to the Western Australian Ombudsman. Indeed, if a member's concerns had been elevated to a matter that might be described as "misconduct", they might have referred that constituent to the Public Sector Commissioner. Maybe members have had matters brought to their attention that were so serious they would be described as "serious misconduct", in which case members would probably have referred them to the Corruption and Crime Commission. That is, I suspect, how members have dealt with matters to do with complaints within the executive government. What do members do if there is a complaint about the way a member of Parliament behaves? I suspect that members would, if they are not already aware, avail themselves of the Standing Committee on Procedure and Privileges, of which the President has the honour, the duty and the privilege of chairing in this Parliament. 

However, what happens when there is a complaint about the judiciary? It has been the case for year after year that we have had an utterly pathetic protocol that sees complaints sent to the respective head of jurisdiction. Who is the head of jurisdiction? The head of jurisdiction of the Supreme Court is the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Who is the head of the jurisdiction of the District Court? It is the Chief Judge. Who is the head of jurisdiction for the Magistrates Court? It is the Chief Magistrate et cetera. They are the individuals who handle those particular complaints. Members may or may not be aware that this has been a matter of ongoing consternation in Western Australia for years. If members opposite are not familiar with this, they should chat with a member by the name of Colleen Egan, who has some expertise in this and who, in a former professional life, has written some excellent articles on this type of matter. It was the case that under the Barnett government, if my memory serves me correctly, a referral was made to the Law Reform Commission of Western Australia, and the Law Reform Commission said that it was time to have a judicial commission. Other jurisdictions have judicial commissions, including New South Wales. Why is this a problem? Members may or may not be aware that in recent times, including in the last Parliament, we had the most unedifying spectacle of a magistrate of the Children's Court suing the President of the Children's Court in the District Court. It was an absolute debacle and a farce of the highest order. I do not have time this afternoon to go through that episode but I have spoken about it on the record on multiple occasions and co-authored academic papers on that issue. 

In the meantime, as I said, in the Barnett government, if memory serves me correctly, there was a referral to the Law Reform Commission and the commission said it was time to have a judicial commission. Enter the change of government, and a gentleman by the name of John Quigley was appointed as the Attorney General. In his typical flamboyant fashion, much ado was made about how the Barnett government had not implemented a judicial commission. Mind you, if members look at the sequence of events, they will see that there was not much time by the time Law Reform Commission handed down its report to be able to do that. Be that as it may—maybe that was an inconvenience to that flamboyant former member—much ado was made about that. He was appointed Attorney General—this is a statement of fact, of course—shortly after the 2017 election. The WA Labor government, including that member and the then Premier, who has since retired, reiterated and reinforced that it was committed to creating a judicial commission. That was more than eight years ago. It was eight and a half years ago that that commitment was made. Members who have been here during that period, including my two good colleagues sitting next to me, will be well aware that I have asked about this repeatedly. That is fine; if the government wins the election and makes a commitment, it is the job of the opposition to hold it to account on it. If it says it is going to create a judicial commission, it can expect questions from the shadow Attorney General: How it is going with that? What is the progress of that matter? When is it going to happen? How much is it going to cost? What is the model of judicial commission the government is looking to implement? 

That takes me to the question that I have asked the hardworking, long-suffering parliamentary secretary representing the Attorney General, who was thrown under the bus this afternoon by his boss, the Attorney General, who had him read the answer. I have it here, and it has the signature of Hon Dr Tony Buti on it, so nobody else has more responsibility for this garbage answer than that member, who ought to know better. He had his parliamentary secretary read this answer into the parliamentary record this afternoon. I asked whether the Attorney General was aware of the number of judicial complaints made during the last financial year. I have given members the history of the WA Labor government saying, "This is a matter of importance. In fact, we're going to get on with it and we're going to do this." What is it trying to do? It is trying to create a judicial commission. What is the judicial commission going to do? It is going to handle complaints about the judiciary. One would think that the first law officer in Western Australia would have some idea of how many complaints there are. After all, what if there are no complaints about the judiciary in Western Australia? Why are we bothering with this exercise of having a judicial commission? Presumably the volume of complaints must be part of the reason for having a judicial commission—part of the reason, not the only one.

I asked the Attorney General whether he was aware of the number of judicial complaints made in the last financial year. The answer was—this is not the part that I am most critical of—that the Attorney General has not been made aware of formal complaints against judicial officers, and that they are dealt with in accordance with the protocol for complaints against judicial officers in Western Australia. Fair enough, parliamentary secretary. It is actually fair enough that the parliamentary secretary's boss asked him to read that into the record today. He does not know. He says he does not get informed about this. It is dealt with, remember, under that utterly pathetic protocol, which is why the Law Reform Commission said it was time to have a commission. 

I had a suspicion that, in all fairness and most charitably, the Attorney General of the day, whoever it might be, might not know that information. That is why there were parts (2) and (3) of my question. The Leader of the House might be interested to know about this matter, because I am referring to his parliamentary and cabinet colleague. I then asked, if the answer to the first question was yes—as in, yes, he knew the answer to that—what the number of complaints was in each jurisdiction. Of course, his answer was that it was not applicable. Why? It is because he does not receive that information. For my third question I asked whether, if the answer to the first question was no, the Attorney General would commit to asking each of the heads of jurisdiction and providing that information to Parliament during these October sittings. I was not even asking for the answer to be provided today. I asked the Attorney General to go and have a chat—to knock on the door of the Chief Justice and the Chief Judge of the Family Court and find out from them: "Your Honour, how many complaints have you received under the protocol? This is a matter that's been drawn to the attention of Parliament and, after all, the members of Parliament are shortly going to be creating legislation about a judicial commission, so we'd like to know how many of those things there are." 

What was the answer that the Attorney General, Hon Dr Tony Buti MLA, put his signature to? He got the poor parliamentary secretary to read it in, to say no. The arrogance is unbelievable. The Attorney General cannot be bothered to get off his backside and go and talk to the judiciary in Western Australia and ask them how many complaints they have had. How are we expected in due course to make a real decision in respect of a judicial commission when that is the level of information that we are going to get? It is simply not good enough. I ask the parliamentary secretary to make sure we get an answer next week.