Ms Mary Keane:

I thank Senator McDowell. On that point, we are obviously concerned about the exclusion, after 25 years of faithful service to the Judicial Appointments Advisory Board, JAAB, to get sent outside the door on the proposed Judicial Appointments Commission. We hope that will not stay as part of the new Bill.

On the Deputy's question about the tame solicitor and tame barrister, my reading of Head 9 is that because of subsection (3), it is actually a judge who was previously a solicitor or a judge who was previously a barrister. It is, therefore, two members of the Judicial Council, one of whom in a previous life was a solicitor and one of whom was a barrister.

To our reading, that is even worse because it could well have been a long time since they practised in either branch of the legal profession. If they are going to be elected as Judicial Council members who can substitute for the Chief Justice, for example, if the Chief Justice is not available, they are likely to be very senior Judicial Council members and, therefore, even more at a distance in terms of years from the practising professions. We do not like it either but we do not like it for a different reason.

We do not embrace the reduction in numbers to nine if it means the representatives of the practising professions are excluded. We also believe if it is to stay at four judicial members, that maybe the four judicial nominees should come from courts of local or limited jurisdiction. We also do not like the suggestion that there are equal legal and lay numbers because there are not. There are equal judicial and lay numbers on the proposed commission as it stands.