Associate Professor Grant Morris (Victoria University of Wellington) discusses his paper on ‘Dispute Resolution in a Pandemic: The Impact of the COVID Pandemic on the New Zealand Dispute Resolution Landscape and Beyond’ with members of the Australasian Dispute Resolution Research Network.
The Australian Dispute Resolution Research Network
The ADR Research Network is a group of Australian dispute resolution academics. Blogging & tweeting high quality, critical dispute resolution scholarship.
The Australian Dispute Resolution Research Network 
Kia ora Grant, thanks so much for your presentation. I am looking forward to learning more about the important questions you are asking. I agree we need to carefully consider under what circumstances it is appropriate to retain online dispute resolution, particularly by state services. One of the concerns I have is that as we pivot towards considering these questions, we might forget the very real need to maintain access and services within communities where there is no meaningful digital access (and I fear the horse had already bolted pre-pandemic – I remember back when I was a Case Manager at Work and Income in 2010, we were relentlessly shifting to phone and online provision of services and scaling back community / in-person presence). There are members of my family who struggle with employment disputes but wouldn’t even know how to find out that MBIE exists or offers a proactive mediation / early resolution service. Do you have any thoughts on how MBIE might explore questions about the proper place of ODR going forward, while advancing / maintaining a physical presence in communities who do not engage digitally?
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