Mr. Chairman, if I may clarify, I'm not saying that to have an efficient privacy regime you should never have order-making power. I'm just saying at this point I think that the wisest thing Parliament could do is let the office go on with the powers in its act, because it hasn't finished using those powers, rather than turning everything upside-down by trying to.... You'd have to completely redraw the legislation.
My experience is that tribunals have their own challenges, notably the challenge of managing the delays of parties. If they're not properly resourced, you have to manage the parties, the availability of those who decide, the presentations of the decisions, and so on. Perhaps for people who haven't worked in tribunals, it seems very quick, a case of we'll just make an order. If you can't rule on damages in order to get your order enforced, then usually one of the parties has to go on to the Superior Court of the local jurisdiction. It's not because you have binding order-making power. It may depend on the legislation that it's necessarily enforced, so you have no damages. You may also be in a very long, drawn-out process, because one of the parties may take you to judicial review during the hearing.
Before this is seen as the panacea in all situations, we should look at exactly what happens in those tribunals, what is their assortment of powers, what elements make them efficient or not. Certainly the ability for us to go to the Federal Court I think is a great advantage. The Federal Court is a prestigious court whose orders will be obeyed and that has the means of enforcing its orders, unlike many administrative tribunals, depending on their design.
