Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I thank the chair for allowing me the opportunity to make some additional comments at the end of what has been a pretty remarkable day in the Australian parliament. I do want to begin with a few thankyous. I note that many members of the secretariat are here in the chamber tonight, including Peggy, Lauren and Sophie, I think. I give a huge thankyou to the entire team of the secretariat. I know that this report wasn't always easy. It was challenging in terms of the content, the issues that we were dealing with and the many issues that had to be thrashed out amongst the committee members. It is terrific that we have been able to arrive at a report that does flag a lot of very important changes to the area of family law, particularly when it comes to the sorts of ways in which we might better support families experiencing family violence.

One of the recommendations I want to very briefly touch on is around the recommendation to remove the presumption of equal shared parenting responsibility. This is quite a big departure from our existing family law but one that we, as committee members, gave a lot of very serious thought and consideration to. Evidence came before us that really highlighted the fact that there were great inadequacies in the way in which the current presumption of equal shared parenting was operating. Despite the fact that there were exemptions available to families experiencing violence, those exemptions were very rarely exercised, and indeed there was substantial evidence to suggest that the presumption was, in fact, contributing to a number of inappropriate and sometimes damaging post-separation parental arrangements. When we were considering, as the committee should do, that it is the interests of the child that should be first and foremost in our considerations and should be the primary presumption, then this presumption of equal shared parenting responsibility really was not living up to expectation. It is a recommendation that I expect might trigger some debate—indeed, that's a good thing—but there are plenty of reasons, as the committee makes clear, as to why that presumption now should be removed.

I would just like to spend the remaining few minutes that I have on some of the points that we still have some differentiation on in terms of the Labor members' view of the report. We've not had a dissenting report, but we have accompanied the report with some additional comments. I'm just going to deal with three issues very quickly. One is to really highlight the issue around resourcing. Time and time again, we took evidence that would suggest that many of the difficulties that families were experiencing when they sought to get resolutions of their family disputes in the court systems were due to an underresourcing of the family law system. We heard of delays of two years and more in some cases. Let's face it: by the time you end up in a Family Court situation, you are usually at the end of your tether. You've exhausted most, if not all, of your options. People are experiencing significant trauma in their life by the time they're at that point, so delays of two years or more are intolerable and sometimes are putting families at increased risk in not having their disputes heard in a timely manner.

In addition to the resourcing issues, there were concerns around ongoing delays in the replacement of judges, whether those judges were retiring or being moved on—really needing to deal with those delays. Getting judges replaced in a more timely manner is going to be critical in order not to continue to add to the already significant backlog of casework that our Family Court and Federal Circuit Court are dealing with. The family law system and the support services around it just need to be properly resourced so that there is timely and effective access for families that require these services. Indeed, lives often depend on them.

The other area I would like to very quickly touch on is just as important. Family law reform is a critical journey for this nation. The Labor members certainly note the Attorney-General's recent instructions commissioning the Australian Law Reform Commission to do a review of the Family Law Act. We think that, given that that review is over a two-year period, that will be a very thorough review of the Family Law Act. We were concerned about some possible pre-empting of those findings here, so we haven't given unqualified support to the reforms suggested in some parts of the report, preferring instead to ensure that the ALRC review is able to run its full course and that those changes or any reform proposals put on the table have been thoroughly considered before being implemented.

The final thing that I would like to end on here is an issue that I know has certainly concerned the Labor members, and that is the inability of the committee to talk face to face with and take evidence directly from the heads of the Family Court and the Federal Circuit Court.

It would be fair to say that there is a very significant difference of opinion when it comes to this matter. Really, it is vital that committees in this parliament are able to freely hear and take evidence from all of the key stakeholders in any inquiry. For the Social Policy and Legal Affairs Committee, which I've sat on in the last term of parliament and in this one, being able to talk directly to those judges has been absolutely critical to the findings of our reports. I know that there was advice received from the Attorney-General that suggested this was no longer possible, but I would like to put on record that this approach really does represent a very drastic and, in my view, detrimental departure from a time-honoured and longstanding effective practice of this parliament.

I would request—and, indeed, I have put this in the report on behalf of Labor members—that the committee and the Attorney-General give very serious reconsideration to their position on this issue. The notion that heads of jurisdiction would not be able to come to talk to parliamentary committees and give key evidence in inquiries is really worrying. There was very clear evidence in the correspondence that came to the committee subsequently that both of those judges were very keen to engage with us. But the advice from the Attorney-General had made it such that they weren't able to do so. So I would ask that the Attorney-General reflect on that and give some serious reconsideration to his position there.

Having said that, I do wish to thank the chair and, indeed, all committee members, for the incredibly hard work that was put into making this report. But the huge thanks, of course, go to all of the people who made submissions and gave evidence. As the chair's comments made clear, that evidence is given at a time when people are under great stress and anxiety, and so it was especially appreciated. We know that sometimes having to relive these stories is no easy task. So, thank you again. I hope this report goes some way towards meeting the expectations and hopes of those people using our family law court systems.

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