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

On 24 June 1999 former Liberal Attorney-General Daryl Williams QC stood up in this place and introduced a bill to establish the Federal Magistrates Court, which is now known as the Federal Circuit Court. That name change, in fact, occurred when I was the Attorney-General in 2013, at the same time as a change that our government then decided on, which was that from that time, in April 2013, the former magistrates of the Federal Magistrates Court would be called judges and their court was to be called the Federal Circuit Court.

Back in 1999, when the Federal Magistrates Court was established by the Howard government, Attorney-General Daryl Williams told this House that the new Federal Magistrates Court, which would be tasked with hearing less complex family law matters, was the answer to the problem of delays in the Family Court. The Attorney-General in the Howard government described the new court as:

… an exciting new development, which will provide a cost effective means of helping to ease current delays and enable more effective use of expensive judicial resources. It will provide a more user-friendly option for parties to less complex matters and should also allow the Federal Court and the Family Court to concentrate on more complex cases.

According to the Howard government, the establishment of a new court to exercise concurrent jurisdiction with the Family Court was the solution to the problem of delays in the family law system. Family law experts disagreed, but Mr Howard and his Attorney-General thought that they knew better.

Twenty years after Daryl Williams introduced the Federal Magistrates Court bill, the current Attorney-General stood up in this place and, with a straight face, blamed the problem of delays on the family law system on the 'split federal family law court system'. In other words, the current Attorney-General said that the system established by the Liberal government 20 years earlier is the reason why Australian families are facing such significant court delays. So, according to the Liberals under Mr Howard 20 years ago, the creation of a split federal family law court system was the answer to the problem of delays. Now, according to the Liberals under the member for Cook, the existence of a split federal family law court system is the reason, and apparently the only reason, for delays! The truth is, when it comes to the family law system, you can't trust the Liberals.

Everyone accepts that there are serious problems in the Family Court at present. The main cause of those problems is not a mystery. As the Australian Law Reform Commission found:

… the family law system has been 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.

Just keep in mind that the Australian Law Reform Commission reported this in 2019, after the longest review of the family law system since its creation in 1975—the review was commissioned by Attorney-General Brandis, commissioned by this government—to this government. That's what its review said. This government has yet to even respond to the 60 or so recommendations of the Australian Law Reform Commission. Over the last seven years the story of the Australian family law system has been a story of neglect, neglect and more neglect—neglect by the Liberal government led by Tony Abbott, neglect by the Liberal government led by Malcolm Turnbull and neglect by the current Liberal government led by the member for Cook. But, instead of working to fix the family law system, the government remains determined to restructure the Family Court and the Federal Circuit Court in a way that will make a bad situation worse for Australian families, including vulnerable children. (Extension of time granted) The government's claim is that the merger will help reduce delays and backlogs in these two courts by creating a single point of entry for federal family law matters, ensuring the development of common rules of court, forms, practices and procedures and streamlining the family law appeals pathway. As it happens, the creation of a single point of entry and the development of common rules, forms, practices and procedures is widely supported. It's widely supported by lawyers who work in the family law system, by counsellors who work in the family law system and by family violence services who participate in the family law system. But all of these things can be, and are being, achieved without any legislative change. It is up to judges to make the rules for their courts. It is up to judges to determine whether there should be a single point of entry for more than one court. All of those things can be, and are being, achieved by the judges of the Family Court of Australia, who are doing excellent work, and by the judges of the Federal Circuit Court of Australia, who are also doing excellent work, and those changes are occurring without the need for a bill, let alone this bill, which is not needed for a single point of entry and is not needed to achieve common rules.

I would like to take a moment to commend the Chief Justice of the Family Court and the Federal Circuit Court, the Hon. Will Alstergren, for the work that he has done in relation to these matters, and I commend the work that the judges of both courts have been doing on those matters. I would like to commend the Chief Justice of the Family Court and the judges of both courts for the methodical and consultative way in which they've been going about that work. I'm hopeful that the creation of a single point of entry and the development of common rules, forms, practices and procedures will make a meaningful difference to the experience of those thousands and thousands of Australians who use these courts every year.

But make no mistake: to the extent that those measures will reduce costs or delays for Australian families, it will have nothing to do with the bill that has come back to the House from the Senate. It will have nothing to do with the Morrison government. The measures that I have described—a single point of entry and common rules, practices and procedures between these two courts—are in the process of being implemented now. They will be implemented whether or not this bill passes today.

This is a terrible bill. It is a terrible betrayal of Australian families by a government of wreckers. The government has not listened to the clear statements made by over 150 people and organisations who work in the Family Court and work in the family law system. The government has not listened to statements made by former chief justices of the Family Court of Australia condemning this effective abolition of the Family Court of Australia, the court established as a specialised court for family law by the Whitlam government which has served Australians so well for more than 40 years.

The government has not listened to the voices of women's legal services, to the voices of community legal centres and to the voices of family violence services who have told the government with a unanimous voice for years now that this merger, this effective abolition, of the Family Court of Australia will do no good and may, in fact, do harm. It's a shameful act by this government, and a particularly shameful aspect of the passage of this bill through the Senate last night is that the government seems to have—

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