NSW Department of Justice wants to hijack the staff of the New South Wales Law Reform Commission … The commission, as we know and love it, would cease to exist … Independent law reform reporting threatened … LRC starved of work and withering on the vine  

One of the hidden agendas of the New South Wales government is the dismantling of the state’s independent law reform commission.

This issue has not surfaced as a burning election issue, which so far has been dominated by the government’s proposals to sell part of the state’s electricity assets. 

It is understood the commission is dismayed by proposals that the Department of Justice take over its staffing and integrate its operations within the strategy and policy division of the department. 

This would be a cruel end to the independence of LRC, which under the Coalition has been left like a shag on a rock. 

The position of chairman of the LRC has not been filled since James Wood retired over a year ago. No full-time commissioners have been appointed for over 12 months.

Justice Johnston has now been appointed deputy chairman, this being a strategic ploy to allow statutory functions to be fulfilled, and it doesn’t cost the government a cent. However, Johnston is too busy to revive what really is a dying creature. 

The department sees the takeover of what’s left of the LRC’s staff as a “harmonisation of resources”. 

Sources tell Justinian that the commissioners are trying to put their case to attorney general Brad Hazzard, who is currently in election mode announcing life sentences for child sex offenders and reopening old gaols that had been closed. 

The commission has always operated independently under the Law Reform Commission Act. Over the past decade it has published reports on criminal appeals, penalty notices, gambling and complicity. 

It has also reviewed sentencing, bail, offenders with mental health impairment and early guilty pleas.

There are two factors at play. The bureaucrats in the justice department see staff “harmonisation” as a way to save a relatively small amount of money, while at the same time throttling the independence of the commission. 

If the proposed changes went ahead the commission would have to apply to the department to co-opt staff to work on new references. 

Those staffers, including legal researchers and project officers, would be departmental employees, responsible to the department head and ultimately the minister. 

Wave goodbye to studies and law reform proposals uninfluenced by government policy. 

This issue should be up there with electricity poles and wires, concentrating the minds of a confused electorate.