On 23 June 2019 the State Attorney General, the Honourable John
Quigley MLA announced the introduction into Parliament of the
Civil Procedure (Representative Proceedings) Bill 2019.
The Bill was a recommendation of the Law Reform Commission of
Western Australia's 2015 Representative Proceedings report.
The Government's media release notes that class actions
serve an important role in providing access to justice by allowing
people who have suffered damage due to a mass civil wrong to seek
compensation as in the absence of such a scheme, individuals who
cannot afford to seek redress could go through the courts
uncompensated. While a mechanism for bringing a class actions in
the Supreme Court exists, it has little application and was found
by the Law Reform Commission to be outdated, inherently uncertain
and silent on many procedural aspects of representative
proceedings.
