Everything is in hand. It’s true. The federal courts’ transcript business has moved back onshore, out of the hands of unapproved, sub-continental third-parties – at least for now.
The court’s ever helpful spokesmuffin told me:
“A significant amount of planning and work has been undertaken by the Listed Entity on the contingency and longer-term arrangements to minimise any impact to the delivery of transcript services to the Commonwealth courts.
The contingency arrangements involve a panel of on-shore transcript service providers, and a panel of transcriptionists managed in-house.
Longer-term arrangements will be focused on a low-cost model for transcript services for all litigants, including those most disadvantaged or at risk, at the core of its design.”
“Low-cost model” sounds intriguing and could leave the door open to another offshore operator with fewer nitpicky humans and even more AI.
VIQ Solutions is now in voluntary administration. It’s puzzling how a virtual monopoly business can go broke with its giant paw on a slab of courtroom transcriptions.
The company’s North American and UK operations remain operational.
Senator David Shoebridge (Greens, NSW) put it with his characteristic gentility: “This is a disastrous privatisation.”
The court’s CEO, Sia Lagos, had trouble at Senate Estimates coming to grips with Senator Shoebridge’s questions about VIQ.
In particular, there was the court’s $5.3 million top-up contract with VIQ entered into two years ago and only publicly notified moments before the senate hearing kicked off on May 26.
This lapse in compliance was explained as an “administrative oversight”.
See transcript.
As if VIQ was not a sufficiently odious operation, the court has signed up Nous Consultancy Group with a $451,000 contract to provide “management support” for recording and transcription services.
The arrangement runs from May 1 to October 31, 2026. Like the VIQ top-up, the Nous contract was only disclosed as Sia stepped into the ring at Senate Estimates on May 26.
Nous has a large footprint in the university sector, in particular ANU and UTS, where it launched a cost-cutting spree and “course architecture strategy” – sending the institutions into a tailspin of misery.
In the NSW parliament, the consultancy was described as a “vampire that comes into universities, sucks them dry and leaves them worse off for teachers and students”.
The Saturday Paper had a feature on Nous’ modus operandi for tertiary institutions: “weaken the academe, centralise power and cut staff” – packaged under the catchword, “Renew”.
The AusTender contract notice doesn’t give much away, but it seems the Nous people will be advising the courts how to conduct their transcription services.
Why these consultants would be in any better position to provide that advice than the courts themselves is a mystery that not even Sia could untangle.
Australian Government Consulting was specifically designed to bring consulting services under the umbrella of the public service, particularly in the wake of PwC’s misuse of confidential of tax advice – it has been conspicuously ignored by the courts’ mandarins.
As for the ongoing construction of CourtPath’s case management system and other IT operations, there is now an army 150 tech-heads tinkering away on these missions for the FCA, the Focaccia, and the National Native Title Tribunal.
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Another bit of traffic we’re picking up is that AGS has sprinkled some of its lawyers into the FCA’s Heath Robinson mechanism.
Maybe they’re keeping an eye on the Office of General Counsel, but we’ll never know how much this little operation is costing because, under the legal services directions, it is not necessary to disclose the money being transferred from one government agency to another.
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There are only a couple of days left for eager-beavers to apply for a big PR job at the federal courts and NNTT – the branch head of communications and information services.
It requires “strategic leadership in complex and sensitive operating environments in relation to reputational and information-related risks”.
Proactive engagement, rapid response and crisis communications are all part of the brief.
It’s described as a “temporary position” which means that someone else may hold the job, but be out of circulation, or they want to road test the successful applicant prior to making the job permanent.
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Let’s leave the last word to Justice “Lion’s Den” Lee.
He’s batted away persistent rumours from well-placed sources in the “integrity landscape” that he’s the number one pea for the NACC job.
We asked him, and back came the word:
“His Honour has no intention of leaving the court prematurely and intends to continue his work on the bench. His Honour has not made any career decisions once his time at the court concludes.”
The celebrity judge is 61 and came to the court in March 2017. To qualify for the judicial pension he would have to continue on the court for another nine months, or so – although if he was called to the NACC, suitable financial arrangements are always available.
It’s hard to bury this piece of scuttlebutt – various “informed sources” insist he should take the corruption job.