About consultation
The Victorian Law Reform Commission is an independent, government-funded organisation that develops, reviews and recommends reform of Victoria’s laws. The Commission has a charter to consult with the community and advise the Attorney-General on how to improve and update Victorian laws.
To ensure our work is informed by the views and experiences of the community, we hold consultations for each project we undertake. Consultation allows the community to be involved in the law reform process. It helps us to identify issues with the law or ways it could be changed and to draw conclusions and make recommendations that are practical, robust and reflect the views of the community.
Our consultation policy outlines how we undertake consultations. Consultation is carried out in accordance with our Information Privacy Policy.
Who we consult
We hold consultation meetings with people and groups who have relevant experience or expertise in an area of law or an issue we are examining. We also hold meetings with people in the community who contact us because they have experience of or an interest in our projects. We call these consultation meetings.
How we consult
A consultation meeting may be held with our project team and an individual, people from one organisation or larger groups. For a group consultation, we usually invite people who have similar interests or experience or who have raised similar issues about an issue we are considering.
For some law reform projects, we also consult in other ways. These can include public town-hall discussions or public questionnaires and surveys. See Engage in law reform for information about the other ways we consult, or the project page for our current law reform projects to find out more.
Consultation meetings help us understand different views and experiences of the law by talking and listening to people. At a consultation meeting, we ask participants questions about their views and experiences. These questions are often based on the questions in a project’s consultation or issues paper. Participants have an opportunity to respond and raise other issues or suggestions for law reform. Meetings are not highly structured and discussion is often wide-ranging.
How we use your views
Notes from consultation meetings (called ‘consultation meeting records’) are used to summarise what consultation participants have told us. These records are reviewed by the consultation participants to make sure they are accurate.
If confidential matters or views are raised, these are not included in the record, or are identified in the record as confidential, in accordance with the wishes of the person who raised these.
We use consultation meeting records as well as submissions, questionnaire and survey responses and other research to analyse the law, draw conclusions and develop findings and recommendations.
Views from consultation assist us in writing our reports. We may refer to the views and information from consultation records in our reports and other publications. Where we do this, we attribute views to the people or organisations that have participated in consultation in accordance with how they have told us they are comfortable being identified in our publications.
We are committed to inclusivity and want to hear from all interested and affected parties, but we cannot reproduce in full the views of every person and group we consult with. Instead, our reports, broadly capture and accurately describe the perspectives of those affected. While everything we are told is considered and used to inform our recommendations, it may not be explicitly discussed in our report.
Consultation records are not published
Consultations are intended to explore, develop and exchange ideas through discussion. These objectives are best achieved when participants are able to engage in full and frank and open discussion. For this reason, consultation meeting records are not published on our website or shared with anyone outside of the Commission or who was not at the consultation meeting.
However, we may be required to provide access to some or all of the record if a member of the public makes a request under Freedom of Information legislation. Any such request will be determined in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Vic), which has provisions designed to protect personal information and information given in confidence. Further information can be found at Freedom of Information – Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner
Consultation participants are listed in our report
Although we do not publish consultation records, we are committed to openness and transparency in our processes and therefore seek to provide as much detail as possible in our reports about the people we consulted.
Our practice is to record the number of consultation meetings which took place during a project, and to list people we consulted with in our final report. However, we will identify or de-identify participants based on their wishes. Generally, we will not name individual community participants except by a general description e.g. ‘consultation with a community member’ or ‘consultation participant from consultation with organisation X’. Consultation participants may request that their views are provided anonymously by making this request to the law reform project team.
Collection, use and management of information
Consultation records which contain personal information or personally identifying information will be collected, stored and used in accordance with our Information Privacy Policy, the Privacy and Data Protection Act 2014 (Vic) and other relevant laws.
Any request by someone outside the Commission for access to consultation records will be refused unless a formal Freedom of Information (FOI) request has been made. Such a request will be determined in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Vic), which is designed to protect personal information and information given in confidence. Further information can be found at Freedom of Information – Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner
Other ways to express your views
There are a range of other ways that the community can engage with our work. These options may differ across law reform projects. In addition to participation in a consultation, we encourage consultation participants to provide a written submission or, if offered, to answer an online questionnaire or survey. See our Submission Policy and Questionnaire and Survey Policy for more information about these processes.
You can find out more information about engaging in our projects by contacting us at the project email address which is published on each project webpage, or in the project issues or consultation paper.
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