‘Cannot go uncorrected’: Supreme Court’s unusual rebuke of minister

“This minister clearly overstepped the mark in her endeavours to promote the Industrial Court and thinks that gives her free licence to criticise the Supreme Court,” he said.

Senior barrister Arthur Moses SC said “it is wholly inappropriate for a minister of the Crown to attempt to trash the reputation of the NSW Supreme Court ... to justify why an industrial court should be established”.

“No minister should make baseless assertions that may have the tendency to undermine public confidence in the NSW Supreme Court,” he said.

Ms Cotsis told parliament on Thursday that “all due respect for the Supreme Court, but it is not a practical forum for dealing with industrial issues between workers and their employers”.

Supreme Court proceedings generally took “several years” and required the cost of briefing senior counsel. Meanwhile, judges “often do not have an industrial law background and would otherwise be dealing with high-level commercial, criminal and public law cases”, she said.

The court responded that many of its industrial cases over the past five years were appeals or administrative law that typically lasted less than a day and were dealt with within days or weeks. Some were dealt with on the day of hearing and “have not involved senior counsel at all”.

As for the claim the court’s judges did not have industrial law backgrounds, the court referred to Justice Michael Walton, a former president of the NSW IR Commission, Justice Stephen Rothman, who had a national practice in IR law, and acting Justice Monika Schmidt, a former IRC judge.

“Matters involving industrial disputes of any complexity are typically dealt with by these judges,” the statement said.

It is understood to be the first time the Supreme Court has issued such a statement since 1986.

Typically, it is left to the attorney-general to defend the courts from criticism.

Premier Chris Minns said Ms Cotsis was “completely reasonable”.

“The reasons for the Industrial Court and the rationale for having it laid down by Sophie Cotsis was 100 per cent correct. And we stand by it,” he told reporters on Friday.

The previous Coalition state government abolished the Industrial Court and transferred its functions to the Supreme Court in 2016 as cases dwindled following the enactment of federal workplace laws.

The Supreme Court said its industrial cases averaged just 10 hearing days a year.

The restored Industrial Court would create what Ms Cotsis called “a one-stop shop for industrial justice”, including cases from the District Court.

Judges on the Industrial Court will get paid the same salary as Supreme Court judges, along with generous judicial pensions.