Dave Tollner (Solomon, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker. I will continue. In 10 years time, will there be much work left for the normal Family Court lawyer? If this legislative reform and community education that goes with it is properly supported, I would hope that the services of several Family Court judges and lawyers may no longer be required. Mr Green QC suggests, and I tend to agree with him, that feminist groups act on a similar anxiety for self-preservation of their feminist myth. Their support for the present system reveals a concern about power and money: if mothers share the parenting of children, it follows inevitably that they will have to share control of the family and of the resources that come with it.

The need revealed by women’s groups for funding and resources to support abused women and children is well established and well accepted. Not so, however, is the radical position that this is the lot of most women and children, particularly in the aftermath of separation and divorce. Radical feminism has done a disservice to women. It has sought to portray them as poor, suffering creatures that need protection from men and from paternalistic institutions, that are unable to speak comfortably for themselves and to make their own choices and that are easily led into negotiations where their will and interests are easily overruled. Such thinking is a grave insult to the majority of women. Ask any experienced mediator who carries the power in most mediations, and almost inevitably they will reply that it is the mother with the children.

I share Mr Green’s opinion that this government is to be congratulated on having the courage and energy to effect a new system of family law and practice based on reliable research and the aspirations of correct-thinking men and women. If enacted and funded and supported by community education, I hope this legislation will bring enormous benefits to mothers, fathers and, most importantly, children. I would again like to congratulate all of the parliamentarians who have been involved, both on this side of the House and the other, on the way that they have conducted themselves and on the genuine desire for all members to see a better system put in place. I would hope that everybody here would support this bill.

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