Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

There is no issue that is more disturbing for a member of parliament than to have parents and grandparents coming to your office distraught about issues surrounding a child, distraught for themselves and distraught about the system. I, like many members of this chamber, have dealt with both parties—the custodial parent and the non-custodial parent. From time to time, I really become overwhelmed by the feeling that somewhere amongst this mess we have lost sight of what it is all about. It is all about the children. They are vibrant young beings who have a future in front of them. The role of parents is to help them to achieve their potential.

So often I find that the dispute that led to the breakdown of the marriage, the angst, the anger, has manifest itself in a fight over the children. The children become the pawns. They become another aspect of the hatred that the parents feel for each other. They are another way that the parents can manipulate events against each other. I find that very concerning. Family law and anything that deals with the future of children should be purely and simply about what is best for those children. I think that that is so often lost when we are talking about family law. It is about the children, and we must never lose sight of that.

The Family Law Amendment (Shared Parental Responsibility) Bill 2005 is a major reform of the Family Law Act. I appreciate that the Standing Committee on Family and Community Affairs considered this issue. I know that members on this side of the House and on the other side of the House became quite emotionally involved in the inquiry. It is the kind of inquiry that it is very difficult to separate yourself from because, as I stated at the beginning of my contribution, this is about real, live people. The committee brought down an excellent report, entitled Every picture tells a story. I would like to acknowledge the fine work that they have done.

This legislation includes the following reforms to the Family Law Act: it introduces a rebuttable presumption of shared parental responsibility; it requires the court to consider equal, significant and substantial shared time with both parents; and it introduces compulsory mediation before litigation, with limited exceptions.

I note that the previous speaker highlighted a particular court case, and I also do not think there is equity in the system. You could be in a courtroom where there was a solicitor or a barrister for the custodial parent and for the non-custodial parent, and, if there were three or four children, separate legal representation for each of them, and yet the best and most just result for those children would not necessarily be delivered. It just becomes an extension of the battle that is taking place. There is a problem in the system.

This legislation also introduces a less adversarial court process, which will be good. It promotes parenting plans as agreed between parents without lawyers—and I know those parenting plans can work. It provides, among other changes, a legislative basis for a major increase in family relationship services through the creation of 65 family relationship centres.

I turn now to a meeting I had in my office on Friday, 20 January. It was a roundtable meeting and included Susan Sanders-Cook, Val McEwan, Stephen Bowskill, Howard Learmouth, Nellie Fennell, Sonia Anderson, Barbara Tebo, Terry Tebo, Michael Lewis and Michael Riddell, and I thank them very much for the time they put aside that day to spend with me and for sharing with me their ideas.

Out of that meeting, Sonia Anderson, who is a solicitor, put together a submission, A grassroots response to the family law reform, highlighting the group’s ideas for making the system better and fairer. The submission starts off by emphasising the need for a bipartisan approach towards family relationship issues. I think that is paramount if anything is to change. The reforms, the group emphasised, should attempt to answer two questions:

1.

What is in the best interests of the child/children?

2.

How does the Court determine what is in the best interests of the child/children?

They continue:

The reforms are aimed at providing a new recipe/formula for the Court and Family Law Dispute Resolution Services to use in an attempt to answer these questions.

These are the reforms that the group is suggesting.

They go on to say that their submission has a very narrow focus. It focuses ‘solely on the development of an alternative approach for those people who wish to explore the possibility of answering these questions themselves’. Their concern is that the family relationship centres are too directive. They believe that the family relationship centres, as detailed in the government’s reform package, should be encouraging individuals to develop solutions for themselves. The current proposal for these centres, they argue, ‘will do little to empower disputing parties towards developing their own solutions’.

It was argued very strongly to me that the best solutions are solutions that the parties can sit down and agree to. To go back to those parenting plans: if the parents can sit down together and develop a plan that is in the interests of the child or children, you will get the best outcome.

It is interesting to note that the people who attended this particular meeting included representatives from fathers groups, as well as people who practise in the area of social and psychological wellbeing. We had people from the field of education—a professor, a teacher and a lecturer in teaching at Newcastle University. And, I must not forget, we also had a grandmother involved. So these people came from very diverse backgrounds.

What they were arguing very strongly was that the government’s family relationship centres in their current form are an advisory dispute resolution service. They feel that the best results would be achieved by a facilitative dispute resolution system. It is argued that if the government were truly looking for cultural change then they would consider the differences between these two different methods of dispute resolution. They would soon find that by adopting a facilitative approach to dispute resolution it would empower both parties involved in the resolution of the problems rather than abrogate or hand over responsibility of those parties to a professional to solve the problem for them.

It is further argued that, in the shift from advisory dispute resolution towards facilitative dispute resolution, real cultural change would be achieved. The model that is being proposed and included in this legislation does little other than extend the current system—non-adversarial advisory dispute resolution as distinct from adversarial dispute resolution. The reason for this is purely and simply because the government has not been able to develop a concept of facilitative dispute resolution.

I ask the House and the members to remember that these people who attended my office on 20 January and who put together this submission are all people who have been involved in the family law system for a very long time. Many of them would see themselves as victims of the system. Many of them have been fighting to have changes made for a very long period of time. I think that what they have suggested is a very fair and reasonable approach. They also emphasise the need for education programs that will enable parents, grandparents and significant others to understand their own role in the family dynamics. As members would know, recent research has shown just how important extended family and significant others are in the development of children.

I hope the House and the government look at and think about what I have outlined in my contribution in relation to the difference between facilitative dispute resolution and advisory dispute resolution. The difference is between taking control of your life and handing it over to professionals, allowing them to take responsibility for determining where you go in the future and where your family goes.

I will also make a contribution about the government’s family relationship centres tender process. I do not believe it has been open and transparent and I think there is a lack of accountability. One of the most important things is for people to understand the process that has been involved in determining where those family relationship centres will be located. Each and every one of us has families and constituents that are affected by family law. So I think it is not the best approach, in determining where those centres should be located, to appoint a group of marginal-seat government backbenchers to make that decision. I believe that the process should be a lot more transparent. The whole process, its underlying effectiveness and its acceptance within the community, will be affected by that.

It is very important too that those services that are provided through the family relationship centres should be of a high quality. I again urge the government to look at adopting the facilitative approach as opposed to the advisory approach. I will be so bold as to suggest that they may like to pilot a facilitative approach in one of the family relationship centres. And if they would like to make a commitment to setting up a family relationship centre in the Shortland electorate, I would be more than happy to welcome one into my electorate.

It is very sad that there are so many separations within our community and so many families where children have their parents living in different places, with children being torn between the two parents. The government needs to take some responsibility for that. There are many pressures on family today, and families need and deserve a high level of support. I worry about the new industrial relations legislation that has recently passed the House. I think it is going to place greater strain on families. I do not think that anything that has happened in recent times will help alleviate the pressures that lead to family breakdown. The government needs to be more proactive. Family relationship centres could, on the face of it, appear to be more proactive, but I would argue that they are far too late—their approach needs to be a lot earlier, and it needs to be from a very different perspective.

In conclusion, I support the amendment moved by the shadow Attorney-General and I implore the House, the minister and the government to consider the suggestion that I have made today in my contribution.

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