Strategic Cropping Land [SCL]

Posted by: Tony Allen

Queensland Government Reviews the SCL framework & Releases the final Statutory Regional Plans for Central Queensland and the Darling Downs

It was interesting to see that late in 2013, the final Statutory Regional Plans for Central Queensland and Darling Downs and the Review of the SCL Framework Report were released by the Deputy Premier and Minister for State Development, Infrastructure and Planning Jeff Seeney and the Minister for Natural Resources and Mines Andrew Cripps, respectively.

The state government states that the review of the SCL framework was actioned to 'improve its effectiveness and to better align with statutory regional planning processes, to streamline legislation and protect priority agricultural land.'

 The government has announced that:

• the new Regional Plans will identify and map Priority Agricultural Areas that will be protected;
• new legislation will be needed to implement the regional plans; 
• the government has now introduced a Regional Planning Interests Bill into Parliament which when passed will take effect some time this year;
• SCL will become one of the regional planning interests under the new Act and the outcomes of the SCL review will be incorporated into the new Act’s regulations and codes. The result will be a single, integrated framework that addresses SCL and the implementation of Queensland’s new Regional Plans;
• the Strategic Cropping Land Act 2011 (SCL Act) will continue to apply until the new Act takes effect in 2014;
• Developments triggered by the SCL Act will continue to be assessed against the SCL Act during this time;
• The Queensland Government has stated that it is preparing new generation regional plans that address critical issues affecting the state’s regions. The first of these new plans, the Central Queensland and Darling Downs regional plans, took effect on 18 October 2013. The Cape York and South East Queensland regional plans are expected to be finalised by mid-2014 and end-2014 respectively. These plans identify, and contain land use policies that protect, areas of regional interest (i.e. priority agricultural areas, priority living areas and strategic environmental areas).

Access to the Review of the SCL Framework Report may be obtained by following this link: http://www.nrm.qld.gov.au/land/planning/strategic-cropping/index.html
Access to further information relating to the Statutory Regional Plans, may be obtained by visiting the Department of State Development, Infrastructure and Planning’s Internet site at: www.dsdip.qld.gov.au
For those who have an interest in SCL clearly this is a must 'watch this space' situation.

Minister Announces Further Drought Support Package

Posted by: Kylie Wilson

McVeigh welcomes extra drought support. Click here to read more.

Recovery after recent floods

Posted by: Kylie Wilson

 

I thought after Scott and Megan's articles about our paperless office it might be worth a practical story to see how much it does benefit our firm and our clients.  We know all about the recent floods and we certainly have some clients doing it very tough at the moment as a consequence.  I am not a city dweller and after all that rain I was cut off at my property for 2 days unable to go into the city office.  Problem? Not at all.  Whilst most lawyers would have been in full panic mode about work undone and no access to files, for me it made no difference whatsoever. I have everything at my fingertips electronically imaged and indexed. It is much quicker and easier to access information and prepare client documents from an electronic file, rather than from the large, cumbersome paper files.  So fortunately for my sanity and for my clients with urgent work to complete it was business as usual!
Another practical aspect of paperless files is for those parents amongst us.  As a mother of young children, it certainly helps when the unexpected and unavoidable interruption crops up during the work day (and they do!) to have access to my files and my clients via secure remote access from multiple devices.  So instead of being torn between work and home, I now have the tools to look after everything. All was calm in the Wilson flood zone!

Young lawyers perspective of a paperless office!

Posted by: Megan Tilbrook

I will still remember in my first week of working in this profession a senior partner describing to me the good old days of working with type writers.  He lived through one of the biggest changes in the way the profession worked when type writers left and computers took their place.  Efficiency increased, costs were reduced and the quality of work improved.  However some members of the profession never quite grasped the change and to this day I hear stories of senior partners who refuse to turn their computer on or use them to store paper on!

 As many of our clients and colleagues would be aware Anderssens is fast approaching a paperless office.  This is proving to be another exciting challenge to the profession on the same scale as that experienced all that time ago.  Personally I have been looking forward to 'taking the leap'.  The time, expense and hassle involved with maintaining both paper and electronic files will be a thing of the past.  Working in the area of Environment and Planning I have always been conscious of the large expense my clients are put to in preparing for trials.  While all paper cannot be spared it is exciting to know it is being reduced significantly by our firm. 

As part of the transition I have read articles on the "generational gap" that will no doubt develop during the process.  As a result, I thought that would be an obvious advantage in my being a younger member of the profession.  Having said that, working in such a dynamic, vibrant firm as Anderssens this could not be further from the truth.  Everyone, regardless of position or age has recognised its advantages not just to us as lawyers but to our clients.  We are now ready to take the leap and I for one am excited about no longer being tethered to paper.

A Game Changer

Posted by: Scott Thompson

As many of our clients would be aware we have occupied our current offices at 167 Eagle Street in Brisbane for 10 years.  In approximately 4 weeks time we will shifting to our new offices at Level 24,  12 Creek Street ( the building is also known as Comalco Place, or the 'blue tower').

This in itself is not groundbreaking news as businesses often move offices,  but the game changer is that when we move we are doing it as a paperless office.

If anyone's visited the back rooms of a legal firm you will quickly realise that lawyers just love to be surrounded by mountains of paper and files. 

Over the past 1½ years we have been planning to change the way our firm conducts business and that involved moving towards and eventually becoming a paperless office.  To achieve this we rolled out a new operating system in October last year which facilitates a paperless office model.  So you can imagine the amount of scanning, archiving and data entry that has taken place in our firm!

However, we are already seeing tangible and quantative benefits for clients and staff.  We provide quicker access to material, less delays to clients needing answers directly and more cost effective legal services. For our staff, they are no longer tethered to the office and can access the complete file, indexed, text searchable and categorised from their ipads, smartphones and PCs anywhere – which they do regularly now from our clients' premises or working remotely a number of days each week.

So finally, we have reached the stage where the last files are being scanned and we are packing to move to a new, purpose designed office space!  We explained to our staff that the new offices had no filing cabinets, no bookcases, no credenzas.   As the realisation slowly sunk in that we were at the last stage of this monumental project – our lawyers are definitely ready to let go of paper.

Queensland’s Drought Aid Receives Huge Boost

Posted by: Kylie Wilson

The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry has declared the Longreach and Barcaldine Regional Council areas drought stricken from 1 January 2014 leading to almost 65% of Queensland now being drought declared.   Information on the Drought Relief Assistance Scheme (DRAS) can be found by following the links attached to the below media release.  Premier Campbell Newman has also announced extra drought relief funding including additional funding for the Drought Relief Assistance Scheme (DRAS) of up to $13 million. To read more, Click Here.

One Source of Truth

Posted by: Karen Thompson

 

Without wanting to sound like an Oprah groupie, I remember my 'light bulb' moment when I got serious about formulating a tangible proposal to put to my Managing Director about going paperless.  It wasn't inspired by seminar rhetoric that it would improve productivity and cost effectiveness, although they are the Holy Grail for any legal IT team project.  It was when I realised that the 'dual' system we were operating under was inferior to the smoke-filled law offices of the 1950s and 1960s, where the most advanced technology was the kettle in the tea room.  I was shocked to realise that with all our technology, sophisticated systems and advanced processes, we were at a significant disadvantage to the 'Mad Men' type law offices operating 60 years ago with only a yellow legal pad, pen, phone and rolodex and all their files securely in a bank of filing cabinets behind them. 

Why? Because in all our wisdom we had created a rod for our back with a dual system, computer and paper based, operating side by side requiring double the workload to maintain and fraught with risk management issues and lengthy delays.  Even on the best day, when secretaries had all their filing up to date, it only took a single email to come in on a matter and the paper file was once again out of date, unsynchronised, thereby creating 2 sources of truth. 

John Clarke stated that sometimes you need to 'Go back a little to leap further forward' and that is what we did at Anderssens.  We looked back to the efficiencies of our senior partners' era and learnt a thing or two.  (Yes those smoke filled, male dominated times have something to teach us technological savvy, cerebrally advanced Gen Xs and Ys). 

We needed to return to the single system the legal profession had spent 100 of years perfecting, however converting it to an electronic only format.  

In our quest, we did find the Holy Grail (minus the nicotine stained paper files!).  Productivity and cost effectiveness have improved which has greatly benefited our service to clients as a result of operating from one source of truth, however unlike our senior predecessors our lawyers are no longer tethered to their desk, filing cabinets and typing pools.  They can operate from anywhere confident their information is secure and up to date and available in any format this modern day legal industry demands.