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Thursday, February 13, 2025
Courts 

Supreme Court hit by more Labor IT incompetence

Robert Clark 1065 Views

The Supreme Court’s 2009-10 Annual Report tabled in Parliament this week has revealed the continuing damage being done by Labor’s IT incompetence as court caseloads and waiting lists continue to grow.

The report raises grave concerns about Labor’s proposals to force the Supreme Court to have its IT systems transferred to the government’s centralised CenITex system.

The report points out the highly sensitive terrorism and other major criminal trials handled by the court, as well as the fact that the government itself is a litigant: ‘ … an external ‘helpdesk’ operated by non-court staff with the capacity to view and control judges desktops which include confidential documents and connections to draft judgements is not what we would regard as a high-quality, independent IT system’. (p3)

“The revelations this week about Parliamentary IT staff being able to access and delete emails without the knowledge of users show how exposed our courts could be if forced by the government to operate under similar arrangements,” Shadow Attorney-General Robert Clark said today. “Even the current arrangements where court IT systems are under Department of Justice control leave courts badly exposed.“A Coalition Government would abandon this plan to force the courts into a
government-controlled centralised IT system and ensure that our courts have independent and court-controlled IT systems,” Mr Clark said.The Supreme Court’s 2009-10 Annual Report also contains further revelations about Rob Hulls’ bungled Integrated Courts Management System (ICMS): ‘ … the implementation of ICMS/CourtView was very difficult. There were dramatic time delays for Court staff in the entry of data … The system has not yet provided electronic filing or data interpretative tools as anticipated’. (p2)

“This latest account comes after anecodotal reports that judges have found the ICMS so bad that some even resorted to using pen and paper,” Mr Clark said.The Auditor-General reported in June 2009 that the budget for the ICMS project had blown out by 36 per cent from $32.3 million to $44 million, with completion delayed by at least 14 months.“As our courts struggle to cope with the longest waiting lists in the country, the last thing they need is more Labor IT incompetence that adds to court delays and fail to deliver the features and benefits that were promised,” Mr Clark said.