Stephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

It was only a couple of weeks back when the Prime Minister said, 'There's no greater thing that breaks my heart than a family breakdown.' I don't doubt for one moment the sincerity of the Prime Minister's words, but, unfortunately, the gap between what the Prime Minister says and what he does is huge, and it's having a devastating impact on families. The coalition's callous, bloody-minded decision to shut down the Family Court system, with virtually no consultation, will leave families to fend for themselves as they deal with the catastrophe of a family breakdown.

Any divorce lawyer will tell you that when a relationship ends people are often at their worst. The mix of volatile emotions, financial stress and the unexpected reality of co-parenting in separate homes is enough to test even the most resilient person. Too often when couples separate it's the children who suffer the most. Too often mothers find themselves in situations of real, and sometimes mortal, danger. Too often fathers are faced with a sense of insurmountable loss. Even without such extremes, the complexity of family law is bewildering and anxiety-inducing for the vast majority of families.

For 45 years the institution that is the Family Court of Australia has been there serving not just as an arbitrator of complex disputes but as a vital point of contact for wraparound services for families who need help. The key point here is that those services operate hand in hand with the legal proceedings. In this sense the Family Court is unique. They must be expert in not only family law but also family violence and intricate financial arrangements. In other words, being a family law judge is a highly specialised role within what is already a highly specialised profession.

Now we're not saying it's perfect. Anyone who's been through the system will say clearly it is not. The system has been swamped. Judges everywhere are struggling to deal with the overwhelming case numbers and ever-increasing complexity of the cases brought before them. I've had numerous conversations with Family Court lawyers in my area of the Illawarra. They talk about backlogs, the insufficient premises in which the court operates and the stress on the system. Lawyer Lorelle Longbottom has said that you can have a mum who has been a victim of family violence perpetrated by the other party, typically the father, so there's this huge history of family violence. They sit together in a complex, tense environment. The courtrooms are too small. There are not enough judges. The case load is going up and up.

It's not unsurprising in these stressful circumstances that you have altercations. The pressure is high, the consequences are immense and too often children are the victims. I'm informed that the registry service for Wollongong, Shellharbour, Kiama and the Shoalhaven also draws from the southern Sydney, Macarthur and Wollondilly regions as well as south down to Batemans Bay. Technically they're supposed to service a little over 400,000 people, but in reality they can be servicing twice as many.

You could lodge a matter in the court today and not have a final hearing for 2½ years. That's 2½ years with issues of custody and 2½ years with issues of property. All of the incumbent conflict that goes with that is unresolved and in many cases spiralling out of control. The answer to this problem is more resources for the Family Court—more judges and more registry staff—making this court more available.

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