The ACT's proposed industrial magistrate will not reduce the long delays in hearing workplace health and safety matters and could face potential conflicts of interest, according to the ACT Law Society and ACT Bar Association.
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Both legal bodies have raised numerous ''logistically problematic'' issues with the government's legislation to bring in the ACT's first industrial magistrate later this year.
They said that while the legal profession in Canberra supported any improvement to work health and safety, the government's proposed legislation contained ''nothing intrinsic … which will, of itself, reduce workplace injury in the territory''.
In a joint submission to the government as part of the public consultation period, the Law Society and Bar Association said the model could exacerbate already lengthy waiting times in having serious workplace-safety cases heard.
In the ACT, some cases relating to workplace accidents or deaths are taking in excess of six years to be dealt with by the court.
The legal groups' primary concern was that the reforms did not include additional funding, but would nominate a dedicated industrial magistrate out of the territory's existing and already overburdened magistrates.
''We are concerned that the proposed changes would shift the workload onto a single magistrate, the Chief Magistrate's discretion notwithstanding,'' they said.
They have called on the government to fund the appointment of an additional magistrate in order to justify the extended jurisdiction and for common-law workers' compensation matters, statutory workers' compensation matters and long-service-leave matters to remain outside the jurisdiction of an industrial magistrates court, in line with similar courts in other jurisdictions.
This includes excluding matters beyond a $250,000 compensation limit.
The submission also calls for the government to fund and appoint specialist public prosecutors for workplace health and safety matters.
''There is a preference amongst lawyers in the industrial relations, criminal and civil law jurisdictions for a system which permits a number of judicial officers to develop expertise in these matters,'' the submission said.
It raises the prospect that the new industrial magistrate would become ''conflicted hearing a prosecution for breach of regulations, and subsequently hearing a worker's compensation case out of the same incident''.
It also noted that this was not the recommendation under the Getting Home Safely independent inquiry into construction industry safety.
''We suggest that our recommendation to remove common-law workers' compensation matters from the jurisdiction of the industrial magistrate's court will reduce the likelihood of delays and enable the industrial magistrate to deal with work health and safety matters in a more efficient manner.
''We believe that the potential for the magistrate to become conflicted by hearing evidence in one case, which may not be admissible in the other, is high. In such instances both cases could not be heard by the same magistrate and there would need to be provision to appoint another magistrate to handle matters where the industrial magistrate may have a conflict.''
ACT Attorney-General and Workplace Safety Minister Simon Corbell said the government would take the views of the Law Society and Bar Association seriously.
The government was considering the public and stakeholder submissions around the proposed model, with Mr Corbell intending to introduce the legislation ''as soon as possible, taking into consideration the needs of stakeholders and the community''.
