Mr Martin Ferguson asked the Minister for Transport and Regional Services, upon notice, on 14 May 2002:

Further to the response to Question TP03 taken on notice in Senate Additional Estimates on 19 February 2002, that the cost of legal advice to the Stevedoring Industry Finance Committee since 1988-89 to date is $10,345,636, (a) what individuals, firms or organisations were paid to provide that advice, (b) on what dates and (c) what was the nature of advice for which each payment was made.

Mr Anderson (Minister for Transport and Regional Services) —The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:

(a) Key individuals and firms to whom payments for legal advice have been made by the Stevedoring Industry Finance Committee (SIFC) include: Blake Dawson Waldron (solicitors) who have been retained throughout the period since 1988-89; various Queen's Counsel, senior counsel and junior counsel; various experts; and payments included various associated disbursements;

(b) Blake Dawson Waldron (BDW) bill SIFC on a monthly basis in relation to individual cases and other legal work, and this has been the case for about 14 years. Monthly billing is common practice in law firms. Many of SIFC's records are in storage. Under the circumstances, obtaining specific dates would be extremely time consuming and resource intensive;

(c) The nature of advice received by SIFC includes usual advice of a confidential nature on: specific cases (e.g. nature of the plaintiff's claim, nature of expert evidence; BDW's assessment of evidence); litigation strategy; SIFC's legal position; and the general conduct of its affairs.