Tasmanian Civil & Administrative Tribunal (Additional Jurisdictions) Bill 2024 (No 46)

Thursday 3 April 2025

[3.46 p.m.]

Ms ARMITAGE (Launceston) - Mr President, as we have probably noted, it is quite a substantial bill. I am not sure if there is that much more to say about it, however, given that the changes it makes to existing legislation are largely administrative in nature.

The establishment of TASCAT was a significant undertaking and we all knew that it was going to be a lengthy process to get it right and to optimise - a lot of t's to cross and i's to dot. It is, therefore, no surprise that years after TASCAT was established, we are still required to look at incorporating additional jurisdictions into TASCAT's operations and understand the need to be adding those which this bill covers.

This includes establishing a new administrative stream, which will hear most of the administrative appeals being transferred by the bill, except for those which are more specialised in nature. Will this new administrative stream be permanent or only exist during the time it takes to hear the administrative appeals that are being transferred by this bill? This bill also replaces the Health Practitioners Stream with a new Occupational and Disciplinary Stream, which will deal with both health practitioner and property agent matters, overseen by tribunal members with appropriate expertise. This stream will include several of the administrative appeals which are being transferred from the Magistrates Court. The bill removes the Forestry Practices Stream, which will be instead heard in the Resource and Planning Stream. Finally, the bill establishes a new Community, Children, and Family Stream within the protective division of TACAT, for matters that require expertise in particularly sensitive areas. These all seem like reasonable changes and I certainly will support them.

However, I would like to hear the views of my colleagues. I do have a question, as I mentioned earlier, Leader, about the new administrative stream this bill establishes. You stated that this new stream will hear most of the administrative appeals being transferred by the bill, except for those which are more specialised in nature. My question is, will this new administrative stream be permanent or only exist during the time it takes to hear the administrative appeals that are being transferred by this bill? A reasonably minor matter, but I just wanted to come to grips to understand how these additional jurisdictions will handle administrative appeals, both now and into the future?