Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Hansard source

If it is of assistance, I had almost completed my remarks. If the government reversed their harsh and unfair cuts to community legal assistance then victims of family violence who access the court system would be able to do so with the confidence that their vulnerabilities would not be exploited through the process. They will be able to seek safe and effective orders based on high-quality evidence.

We have seen the Family Court system undergo years of progress in terms of the equal treatment of women. We still have work to do to ensure that our system does not disadvantage women, especially victims of family violence, when it comes to property settlements and child custody battles, and I would urge the government to again look at repeated recommendations by the Family Law Council, repeated recommendations by the Law Council of Australia, repeated recommendations from family law practitioners to again look at this vexed area of cross examination—

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