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LOCAL COURT (RELATED AMENDMENTS) BILL (Serial 154) Bill presented and read a first time. Mr ELFERINK (Attorney-General and Justice): Madam Speaker, I move that the bill be now read a second time. The main purpose of this bill is to make further amendments consequential to the enactment in 2015 of the Local Court Act. As with the recently introduced Local Courts (Repeals and Related Amendments) Bill 2015 (Serial 148), this bill provides for matters consequential to the establishment of a new local court that has jurisdiction over both criminal and civil matters and the consequent abolition of the Court of Summary Jurisdiction, and for ancillary reforms relating to consistency of proceedings within the Local Court, the Supreme Court, the Youth Justice Court and the Work Health Court. The consequential amendments have been split between two bills so as to simplify management of the implementation. The first bill deals with significant policy issues that have been dealt with as part of consequential amendments along with statute law revision to the acts, for which there are significant amendments. The bill provides for amendments of a statute law revision nature dealing with the more minor amendments to approximately 156 other acts and pieces of subordinate legislation. These bills and subordinate legislation are listed in the explanatory statement. Changes have been made to update references and terminology resulting from the Local Court Act 2015. These include changing the following references: magistrate to Local Court judge; Court of Summary Jurisdiction to Local Court Justices Act, to Local Court Criminal Procedure Act; Registrar to registrar with a little ‘r’; Justice of the Peace with capitals to justice of the peace in lower case; crime to offence or, where appropriate, indictable offence; justice to justice of the peace; judge to Judge of the Supreme Court; and the current Local Court Act 1989, as amended, to Local Court Civil Procedure Act. The amendments also remove the use of the term ‘clerk’ in any acts and, where necessary, replace it with ‘registrar’. Further, the amendments change any reference to committal proceedings and replace it with a reference to a preliminary examination under Part 5 of the Local Court Criminal Procedure Act. This bill is an important is an important piece in a set of legislative reforms that will bring greater certainty and clarity to the law, making it easier for courts, lawyers and the public to understand and comply with the legislation concerning the courts. I commend the bill to honourable members and table a copy of the explanatory statement. |