This afternoon I attended a consultation held by Justice Bell, President of VCAT, for community members as part of the review of VCAT that he is currently conducting.

Earlier this year Attorney General Rub Hulls announced an audit of VCAT to determine if it is providing the public accessible, low-cost and speedy justice. This announcement coincided with the appointment of Supreme Court Judge Kevin Bell as the new president of VCAT.

VCAT has been in operation for 10 years so the audit is timely, if not overdue. We need to ask what was VCAT set up to do and is it fulfilling these goals? VCAT was established as a place where a regular community person could attend and get a fair go, expecially if they didn't have legal representation.

At the forum, I listened to the various concerns that community participants in VCAT hearings have and learnt that regardless of our location in Victoria, be it rural, urban or half way in between, that we share much in common.

One of the key complaints focused on the way that legal representative behaved at the Tribunal. Many community representative spoke of the bullying behaviour they had been subject to. There was one example of a day spent arguing what the definition of the word highest actually meant! Cases like this were common. Overall the sentiment in the room was the VCAT was not an even playing field for those who did not have legal representation.

To his credit Justice Bell said that if there is a perception that it is an unfair contest, then this is a serious problem and something needs to be done about it.