The Howard Coalition government created a new Federal Court in the form of the Federal Magistrates Court. In areas such as family law the Federal Magistrates Court shares an overlapping jurisdiction with the Family Court. It was intended that the Federal Magistrates Court be a cheaper place to have litigation when it was set up. Like a few other ideas of the previous Coalition government this one was short on detail.

The starting point was lower filing fees, which is a great idea. However, filing fees are only a small part of litigation expense. Although the Federal Magistrates Court was intended to somehow get the job done cheaper, it is difficult to see it as having achieved its goal. This is because it soon embraced all of the drawn out paper driven pre trial procedures of the Family Court. It is tempting to think that both Courts could well benefit from a stiff dose of bareknuckle common law oral hearings with no paper and plenty of cross-examination. But that would be against the theory of family law, which is that a hearing is a last resort.

The current Labor government would like to abolish the Federal Magistrates Court, and presumably, after July, when their green friends in the Senate come on board, they could well be able to pull it off. When the Labor government was asked whether they would treat the existing magistrates the same as the judges after abolition they said they wouldn't. That was part of the original cost saving measure, the magistrates get no pensions, but the judges do.

The Labor government justified this position by indicating that because the Magistrates court was set up as a cheap court, not paying pensions was part of the saving. So, if and when it is abolished there might well end up being 2 kinds of judges in Family Court matters, ones with pensions and ones without.

Whilst it is hard to envisage any trade union welcoming a 2 class system for workers, the Labor government seems to be happy with the idea. Maybe because magistrates don't have a union.