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VCAT is committed to ensuring all Victorian communities have access to the services it provides. VCAT is centrally located at 55 King Street in Melbourne, which houses the customer service centre, hearing rooms and the VCAT Mediation Centre. When VCAT holds hearings in outer suburban and regional areas, it sits in a number of different locations such as the local law courts.
VCAT’s work is far reaching in its scope and the number of people it affects across Victoria. In 2007-2008 VCAT received around 86 000 cases which in turn affected many more individuals, families and businesses throughout metropolitan and country Victoria.
The president of VCAT, Justice Kevin Bell, is interested in hearing your views on how well VCAT engages with your local community, particularly if you live in outer suburban Melbourne or regional Victoria. As part of the community consultation, Justice Bell visited the communities of Mildura, Ballarat, Bendigo, Shepparton, Geelong and Morwell, and will conduct community forums throughout the greater Melbourne region in July and August 2009.
Here are some questions you might like to consider:
- Is VCAT easy for the community to access?
- Do the people in the outer suburbs of Melbourne and in regional and country Victoria have the same ready access to VCAT as people living in urban Melbourne?
- Is VCAT’s level of customer service acceptable in outer metropolitan and regional centres?
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Where can VCAT improve the community’s awareness of its role?
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Last Updated on Tuesday, 26 May 2009 16:48 |
Online discussion topics 
VCAT members presiding at Review of Decisions relating to the OH&S legislation need to be throughly conversant with the requirements of the OH&S legislation, and that lawyers representing the respondent should not be able to dominate the proceedings. Removing lawyers from the VCAT arena, will make a more "level playing field" for small business to review decisions with little costs.
I totally agree with Joe about the cost of travel. Also, in opposing broiler applications there is the angst of going for days on end to VCAT, often being treated badly by Tribunal members, having to find thousands of dollars in small local communities to have legal representation against the inevitable QC - and all this when the best we can hope for is the status quo.
VCAT is not easy to access when the cases last several days and we from the outer world have to travel to Melbourne each day. It is expensive! For a one day hearing not too bad but multiple days is not good. Need to move multiple day hearings to local area and let the developers and lawyers travel a bit. Hopefully the lawyers will be eliminated from VCAT and it will get back to its stated purpose of being fair and affordable.