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

I rise today in the midst of the nation's focus on the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence to speak on these bills which frankly do nothing—well, worse than nothing—in terms of protecting women and children escaping violence. They potentially make the situation far worse. It is to the great shame of this parliament that these bills—the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia Bill 2019 and the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2019—are before this House during these 16 days of activism in particular but it would be a shame at any time, quite frankly. I rise to strongly support the amendment moved by the shadow Attorney-General.

It is almost two years ago to the day that I stood in this place and discussed the terrible impacts that the government's bills to merge the Family Court of Australia and the Federal Circuit Court into a single generalised court would have. It was a damaging plan then and it was thoroughly condemned by the community and by legal stakeholders alike. It was completely unjustified. There was no modelling. There was no white paper. There was next to zero stakeholder engagement. Indeed, there was only a six-week desktop review of operational data by two accountants at PricewaterhouseCoopers. From this, the government proposed a drastic restructure that would solve none of the very real pressures that our family law system faces. Indeed, it would create a great deal more problems than it proposed to fix. Those bills were not only friendless; they were despised, and there was widespread relief when they died a natural death upon the expiry of the 45th Parliament.

Yet here we are with restructured but tragically unimproved bills. They would essentially abolish the Family Court of Australia and thus diminish the important role of a specialist court in helping people through family disputes. The Law Council of Australia was spot on when it responded to the reintroduction of these flawed bills by saying:

Legislation merging the specialist Family Court into a single generalist court will not alleviate the fundamental problems plaguing the family law system, including the risk of victims of family violence falling through the cracks.

If passed, these bills would drive the most radical changes to Australia's family law system since its inception in the 1970s under the Whitlam government. Family courts need to be able to respond to any number of very specific and complex issues, which can include drug use, crime, domestic and family violence, and mental health issues. This is a specialist area that demands specialist skills, abilities and services. But this reckless plan from the Morrison Liberal government would essentially abolish the standalone, specialist Family Court, which has been operating now for almost half a century—a court which plays a critical role in supporting those in need of specialist family law assistance, particularly in cases where there is family and domestic violence.

Make no mistake, this matters. The consequences of reducing our courts' capacity to respond to family and domestic violence are incredibly serious indeed. One woman is killed in Australia by a partner or ex-partner every single week. Already in 2020, 45 Australian women have been killed violently. We know that the post-separation period is one of the most dangerous times for women and children fleeing family violence. This means that the courts are absolute ground zero for domestic violence cases. This is confirmed by the fact that at least 70 per cent of matters brought before the Family Court involve family violence. As AWAVA said in its submission to the Senate inquiry on this bill:

With such prevalence of family violence matters in courts, family violence can be described as "the core business of the family court."

This is heartbreaking, but tragically it is true. It is also true that if the Morrison government diminishes how our courts respond to domestic violence, it will put vulnerable lives at risk. This is shameful, it is arrogant, it is dangerous and it mustn't proceed. I urge the government members to vote against this legislation, to reconsider their position. It's not too late.

Of course there are massive issues in our courts; no-one is disputing that. However, many issues stem from the chronic underfunding and under-resourcing of the courts following seven years of conservative governments in this country running them down. Judges have as many as 600 cases on their dockets and families are being forced to wait for a year, or even two, for their cases to be resolved in this profoundly overstretched system. This legacy of years of neglect under consecutive Liberal governments is clear, but this bill will go nowhere near solving those problems. Indeed, if it proceeds, this bill will only throw the courts into further chaos and reduce our capacity to protect and support vulnerable Australians.

Given these very serious risks, it is no surprise that more than 110 family law experts banded together to pen an open letter which calls on this government to abandon this legislation once and for all. The letter actually urges that we go in the opposite direction and increase the level of specialisation in family law and family violence, not dilute and diminish it. The Law Council of Australia's president, Arthur Moses SC, also spoke out on the impacts of this plan, saying:

This misstep will harm families. For more than 40 years, the Family Court has been a premier legal institution, a specialist superior court admired by other family law jurisdictions around the world for its innovative management of the most complex and difficult family law matters. The Bill, will not produce efficiencies, reduce delays, or deliver anything of real value. Nor will they reduce complexity or legal costs in the family law system. In fact, it could make the system worse.

That's not the Labor Party saying that; that is the president of the Law Council of Australia. This opinion is reflected in my local community, where there is grave concern about the implications of this bill proceeding. Most recently, I was contacted by Ms Alison Roberts, a family law practitioner of more than 14 years experience, who told me, 'For the families of Newcastle and the surrounding areas, this bill is a disaster and will have widespread impacts for the very vulnerable children and families.'

When any legislation prompts such unified and vehement condemnation from those that know, it behoves a government to listen. But not this government. Instead, it's doubling down by progressing this dangerous plan through the parliament today. What makes it worse is that the government absolutely knows how serious the problem is, but it is choosing to do nothing about it. In 2017, this government commissioned the Australian Law Reform Commission to conduct a comprehensive review of the system. The government said at the time that it wanted to ensure that it meets the needs of families and effectively supports vulnerable people in cases where there is family violence or child abuse. Despite this, the government didn't even bother to wait for this important review to report before ploughing on with this senseless piece of legislation to essentially abolish the Family Court of Australia. The arrogance and recklessness of this pre-emptive action is truly breathtaking, and it is shameful. It certainly comes as no surprise to me that only one government member was prepared to defend this legislation today.

Since these bills were first tabled, the ALRC has released its landmark report. Its findings are shocking, but, again, it's not surprising—certainly not to those with experience of the family law system. The report shines a light on the tragic consequences of starving our courts of resources year on year on year. It describes Australia's family law system as being:

… deprived of resources to such an extent that it cannot deliver the quality of justice expected of a country like Australia, and to whose family law system other countries once looked and tried to emulate.

What a scathing comment to make.

The ALRC findings are mirrored in virtually every conversation I have had with my local legal community members in Newcastle on this matter. They tell me of a chronically underfunded system. They speak of the lengthy delays in replacing judges. They say that matters are taking up to four years to resolve, with families waiting up to a year for family reports—the critical documents that provide an independent assessment of their cases—to be made. They tell me of their worry and concern for our judges, who are each carrying a workload of 1½ judges by themselves. And they tell me of constituents falling through the cracks, thrust into personal danger or stuck in limbo while their family situations deteriorate. This cannot go on.

The ALRC report included 60 recommendations to address many of these grave systemic issues, but, in a continuation of its usual contempt for expert advice and a belligerent refusal to listen to the facts, the Morrison Liberal government hasn't even bothered to respond. Instead, it has come up with this drastic and completely unjustified restructure.

It has also ignored many of the other 12 significant reviews into the family law system which have been undertaken since 2009. I had the honour of deputy chairing one of these inquiries in 2017 for the Social Policy and Legal Affairs Committee. We looked at what we needed to do in order to create a better family law system that would support and protect those affected by family violence. The inquiry arrived at 33 recommendations, most of which the government has been told again and again, and most of which they have shamefully still done absolutely nothing about.

There is one recommendation that I'd particularly like to draw to the House's attention today, and that's the removal of the presumption of shared equal parental responsibility. This is one of the most commented-on pieces of necessary reform in the family law system. I am currently deputy chairing for the same committee another inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violence in Australia. Whilst the focus of that inquiry is not on the family law system, people continue to raise this issue around the need to abolish the presumption of shared equal parental responsibility. Indeed, there is significant evidence that this presumption is leading to inappropriate and sometimes downright dangerous parental arrangements. But we can do something about this. It has widespread support in the sector, and it could be done tomorrow and it wouldn't cost a cent. Protecting women and children must be absolutely central to the mission of our family courts and, indeed, our social services system. I urge the government to give serious consideration to removing this presumption as a matter of priority, so I again call on the government to support the private member's bill that sits before this parliament to do just that—remove that presumption.

Just returning briefly to the bills before us today, it's clear that these bills would diminish our family law system and, in doing so, would literally put the lives of vulnerable families on the line. The Morrison government needs to scrap this plan immediately. Again, I note not a single inquiry has backed the legislation that sits before this parliament tonight—not a single one—and not a single person. This legislation is friendless and it must be scrapped.

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