Reference is made to a high level of distrust between legal practitioners and the Court as a whole, while referring to practitioners in some registries being enthusiastic about the judges and Court staff with whom they work. The Court disagrees with this conclusion but recognises that trawling the profession for criticisms of its case management system will inevitably produce a number of negative responses about that system and th e body responsible for its introduction. That process is almost complete. An independent costs review carried out by Dr Tim Fry of Monash University found that costs are lower under the new rules for all cases that reach a final hearing, but particularly those cases in which financial matters were in dispute. In other areas no statistically significant increases in average costs were found.
All courts have a central administration.
This is called the Principal Registry in the Federal Court and the Office of the Chief Executive in the Family Court. There is no significant difference in their functions. While the Court accepts that the ALRC has largely supported its current direction and initiatives it is extremely disappointing that the Commission has chosen to include such gratuitous, ill-informed and wrong comments about a Court whose task is perhaps the most sensitive and difficult in the country.