Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Women who, having left an abusive relationship, are facing family law proceedings in court deserve to be treated with respect and afforded justice. There are processes in the family law courts that are at risk of being misused by abusive ex-partners. That needs to change.

Labor has a policy to chance court procedures to make them fairer in cases where violence is a feature. The Turnbull government should get on board with our policy. Going through family law proceedings is hard enough for anyone. Violent is a feature in 41 per cent of cases in the family law courts, according to Family Court of Australia Chief Justice Diana Bryant. When violence is a feature, litigants are also alleged victims. The impact of those circumstances on the people affected should be considered to make sure that victims are able to get a fair go.

When an abusive former partner is unrepresented he can personally cross-examine a woman in court instead of having a lawyer do it. Lawyers are professional advocates with legal and ethical responsibilities to the court and the parties. Unrepresented former spouses are not, or at least not to the same extent. They do not have the same obligations as professional lawyers. Being questioned by someone who used to try to control you or who was physically violent towards you can be confronting. It can change your demeanour, and it can intimidate you out of saying things that you might otherwise have said. Those things can affect the evidence that you give and they can affect the court's assessment of your credibility.

In October and May, Women's Legal Services Australia called for cross-examination reform, among other things, to make family law proceedings safer. I am meeting with WLSA and Rosie Batty tomorrow to hear from them on how to put safety first in family law. Cross-examination law reform has to be part of making family law proceedings safer.

As I said, Labor has a policy to reform cross-examination. Before the election, the member for Moreton and I, along side Angela Lynch from Women's Legal Service Queensland—who is here today—announced Labor's commitment to changing the rules so that judges would consider whether unrepresented litigants should be required to get a lawyer rather than doing the cross-examining themselves. We committed to more than $40 million in additional funding for legal aid to allow that to happen and, to make sure the victim is not disadvantaged because her ex has a lawyer, that legal aid support would be available for her to get a lawyer too.

This policy would help victims; it would help perpetrators and it would help those who deny the violence as well, because they would have legal assistance in their situation. The Liberals should get on board with this policy. Sadly, when Attorney-General George Brandis was asked about cross-examination reform during estimates, he refused to agree to it. Since then, consistent with his position at the time, the Turnbull government has failed to commit to this reform.

I call on the Turnbull government to commit to reforming cross-examination so that perpetrators of violence can no longer personally cross-examine their victims in the family law courts. Women who, having left an abusive relationship, are facing family law proceedings in court deserve to be treated with respect and afforded justice, as I said. It is wonderful that there has been so much bipartisanship in this place in relation to ending domestic and family violence. It is, of course, wonderful to hear the member for Mallee speak. He was an excellent co-convener of Parliamentarians against Family Violence last year, as were the others that he mentioned, including my colleague and friend the member for Gellibrand.

We have had very broad cross-party support in this place for moving to end violence against women and their children, and there has been cross-party support for the National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children, which is about halfway through—it ends in 2022. There is certainly more to be done when it comes to reforming justice. Of course, in family law proceedings that means many things. Cross-examination reform is not the only reform needed. For example, we need to do something about the fact that the Federal Circuit Court, which takes about 90 per cent of first instance family law proceedings, is underresourced. There are not enough Federal Circuit Court judges for the case load that they have, and the consequence for parties is that there are significant delays in family law. The blowout of cases going to final hearing is something that the member for Mallee and many parliamentarians are aware of. That is why Labor was so firm in the election period in committing to additional Federal Circuit Court judges, because we believe that that needs to be addressed urgently.

Of course, once you have more resources of judges in the Federal Circuit Court, you can move to helping make sure that all the actors in the court system—the judges, the registry, the Family Court report writers—have the information available that they need so that they can ensure that they understand the complexity and nuances of violence, what it does to relationships and its interaction with family law proceedings. That needs to happen. People who are before the courts deserve justice. We should make sure that processes cannot be misused. I call on the Turnbull government to get on board the cross-examination reform.

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