Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Communications) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia Bill 2019 with an uncomfortable feeling of deja vu. It has become a characteristic of modern conservatism epitomised by those opposite to trash the institutions that serve our society. It used to be the case that conservatives were the defenders of institutions in our society. It used to be the case that conservatives were the defenders of moderation and proper process and carefully stepping through significant changes in our society. That's not what we've seen in recent times from conservatives in Australia and abroad. This bill really epitomises this trend.

The effect of this bill would be to abolish the Family Court as a specialist standalone court in Australia. This coup de grace for the Family Court comes after seven years of neglect for the Family Court under first the Abbott government and then the Turnbull government and now the Morrison government. They've under-resourced the Family Court and failed to make the judicial appointments necessary for the court to expediently deal with its case load. Nobody disagrees that the family law system isn't functioning effectively in Australia at the moment. There is a need for change. What there is not a need for is the radical destruction of an institution, represented by the bill before this House. That's what we're talking about here. We're not talking about the acts of a conservative government; we're talking about the acts of a radical government. This is vandalism, not conservatism. I have to say it gives me a very strange feeling as a progressive member of parliament, usually someone who is an advocate of change for the betterment of the nation, to consistently be forced to defend the strength of our institutions in society. It would be great if we saw those opposite taking this course as well.

Frankly, the need for a standalone specialist Family Court in the 45 years since it was established has never been greater than today—the member for Isaacs, the shadow Attorney-General, has made that case compellingly in his contribution to this debate—and I want to dwell very briefly on why this is. Family law is a specialist area of law but, more so, it deals with a very special cohort of people appearing in litigation. We're not talking about corporations arguing about things with well-resourced in-house legal counsels and barristers. We're talking about families confronting family breakdown. We're talking about vulnerable Australians. In the 45 years since the establishment of the Family Court, we've come to far better understand the particular vulnerability of two groups within this cohort: the victims of family violence and the victims of child sexual abuse. Dealing with these matters requires not just expertise in law, in the subject matter, but also experience and understanding into the nature of these abhorrent behaviours and how to proceed in a legal system in a way that protects the victims of these horrible crimes.

The Family Court, as I said, is not perfect in dealing with these issues, but a standalone specialist court is far better equipped to deal with this than a Federal Circuit Court dealing with the full gamut of issues appearing before the Federal Court. Corporate insolvency, bankruptcies, tax litigation: all these things do not deserve to be wound up together with family breakdown and the litigants going into family law issues. There is great reason to tread carefully in reform in this area, but the bill before the House is a travesty of process. There's nothing conservative about the way that this bill has been developed. The bill represents fundamental structural changes that have not been recommended anywhere by any substantive process. The 2019 Australian Law Reform Commission inquiry into this issue, a landmark inquiry that the government has since ignored, did not recommend this. Indeed, there are five separate reports that are claimed by the government as the supporting evidence—as arguments for the radical vandalism represented in the bill before the House today—and which they describe as the evidence base for these reforms. Five separate reports are listed on the Attorney-General's website, but none of the reports recommend these radical changes. In fact, none of these reports even considered structural changes of this kind. These changes were cooked up in the mind of the Attorney-General and then brought into this House for debate.

And what kind of a debate are we having in the House at the moment? When the Family Court was established 45 years ago, we had a debate in this chamber that went for 28 hours. There was robust discussion and debate between both sides of the House about what were very significant changes at a time of very significant change during the Whitlam government: the establishment of no-fault divorce at the same time as the establishment of the Family Court. Members engaged in a very substantive discussion about this. Where are the members opposite engaged in the discussion about the radical change contained in this bill? They're completely absent. Only one member of the coalition government proposing these radical changes has come into this chamber in order to defend them: the member for Fisher, who I do acknowledge has a long interest in these issues and engages in these issues frequently. But he's alone. There's no-one else, and that should tell you something. This is a radical act of vandalism against one of the institutions in our legal system that have best served some of the most vulnerable people in our community, and one member of the government fronts up to explain it. This is no way to do change in our society.

This travesty of a process might be why this bill is utterly friendless. Of the 110 stakeholders that have engaged with the government on this bill, 110 are opposed to these changes. These stakeholders are the people at the coalface. These are the people on the front lines of the family law system, and they are unanimous in their view that, yes, change is needed, yes, the system needs to be better resourced and, yes, the system is not serving people that engage with it as well as it should but, no, the abolition of a standalone specialist Family Court is not the answer. Look at the gamut of people and organisations opposing this bill: the Law Council of Australia, the women's legal services, community legal centres, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander legal centres, child protection advocates and disability services. From across Australia, they've written to the Attorney-General asking him to think again, to withdraw this act of radical vandalism, to act as a true conservative would and to step cautiously into these very significant changes. Those 110 individuals and organisations oppose this bill because there are real-life consequences from this bill. Australian families, and particularly the victims of family violence and child abuse, will be the ones that will pay the price for the vandalism of this bill.

The 110 stakeholders who have made submissions to the Attorney-General asking him to change course have made it clear that they believe that this bill, the destruction of a standalone specialist Family Court, will harm vulnerable children and families in need of specialist family law assistance. It will increase rather than decrease the cost, time and stress for families and children in the family law system—the very purpose of this bill. It will place further stresses on the Federal Circuit Court judges who are already struggling under unsafe, unsustainable and unconscionable workloads. Some of the case loads in the dockets around the country are just mind-boggling, but it's not a consequence of the structure of the Family Court; it's a consequence of seven years of neglect of the Family Court by those opposite—of under-resourcing and failing to make judicial appointments.

It's the two-card trick from the conservatives these days: undermine government institutions, under-resource them, kneecap them, stop them from being able to be effective in serving the purposes for which they were established and then have the chutzpah to point at them and say, 'Look, they're broken; they're not working, and we need to destroy them.' We, on this side of the House, don't fall for it. We know that the need for a specialist and standalone Family Court is stronger than ever before, because of the greater understanding we have today of family violence, child sexual abuse and the need to protect those vulnerable cohorts. We get that.

Finally, those 110 organisations that are asking the Attorney-General to think again have made it clear that this bill fails to address any of the fundamental problems plaguing the family law system, including the risk of family violence survivors falling through the cracks. It's worth dwelling a little bit on some of the specific quotes from some of these organisations about what these consequences are. Community Legal Centres Australia said of this bill:

… moving away from a specialist family court model would be a retrograde step and expose survivors of family violence to unnecessary risk.

Women's Legal Services Australia said its opposition of the bill is:

… centred on ensuring the safety and best interests of the child and the safety of adult victim-survivors of family violence in family law proceedings.

The President of the Law Council of Australia, Pauline Wright, said this bill:

… would result in the effective abolition of the Family Court of Australia, a respected, specialised and focused court dealing with family law issues. The 2019 merger bills, if passed, would also mean that Australian families and children will have to compete for the resourcing and hearing time with all federal matters—that is, other matters like migration bankruptcy and those sorts of things that the Federal Circuit Courts and the Federal Courts deal with. There must be an increase not a decrease in specialisation in family law and violence issues. This is critical for the safety of children and victims of family violence.

I ask those opposite to stop, to pause, to listen and to not be gulled by the arrogance of this Attorney-General—an incompetent Attorney-General whose time in the role has been characterised by one debacle after the other. Now is the time to stop and pause and listen to the tidal wave of opposition to this bill from those who will be affected by it.

It's completely unacceptable that an act of vandalism like this bill can be brought through this parliament with only one member of the government willing to speak for it. Why bother to be elected to this parliament? Front up. This is a substantial change that will affect not only one of the most important legal institutions in this country but also one of the core institutions of our society: the family unit. But those opposite have nothing to say about it. They won't speak in support; they won't oppose it. They have got nothing to say and nothing to contribute. They're happy to outsource their judgement to the Attorney-General. Well, good luck to them.

This bill, after this debate, will presumably head up to the Senate for debate there. I implore the crossbench in the Senate to exercise their brains in a way that the coalition have not on this bill—that government members have not. I implore them to listen: listen to everybody in the legal community and to advocates for victims of family violence and child sexual abuse who are begging this government to listen, to stop and to take a different path. Surely there is no cause more deserving of a little bit of judicious reflection than family violence and child sexual abuse. Those opposite, particularly the home affairs minister, like to thump the dispatch box when talking about these issues. They like to make these issues into binary issues: whether you are for victims of child sexual abuse and family violence or against them. I say to those opposite: this is a bill that many advocates and victims of family violence and child sexual abuse say will have a very negative impact on the people that they represent. Take the time to listen. Pause, withdraw this bill and develop a new path that protects these most vulnerable people and our family law system. And rediscover your conservative roots. It's getting a bit tiring being a progressive—being the only people willing to stand up in this parliament and defend the institutions of this country.

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