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

Several weeks later, there was an explosion in their party room and the minister was deposed, and this matter has somehow laid fallow for four years. Such is the priority that this government and this Prime Minister have attached to dealing with the issues around women's access to superannuation and equitable access to superannuation through a Family Court proceeding. So it's entirely relevant that the members of this House understand the background and the history to this piece of legislation and how it sits in the priority list of this government.

If I could, I will go on to make this point: the very reason that this bill is before the House—this bill which we support and which we supported, saying, 'Let's get on with it,' back in 2017—is that the government had found themselves with a diabolical problem with women, had announced a bunch of measures which were absolutely crazy and had realised they had to make up ground. I'll remind members of this House of some of those measures. For example, a thought bubble that was floated by the minister for superannuation and financial services was that women be granted access to their superannuation in domestic violence circumstances. I remember very well, and you'll remember very well, Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, that the member for Dunkley gave a very impassioned speech in this House, as indeed did you and as indeed did Senator McAllister in the other place. That idea was shot down, because it was made quite clear that that was a proposition that was going to hurt women twice. If ever there were a proposition that was designed to ensure an abuser could get access to their partner's superannuation, it would have been that measure there. It was roundly shot down. And then this measure was dusted off, and they said: 'Here we go. We've got another one.'

The minister at the table asks: why is this history relevant? I think members in this House deserve to know why it has taken in excess of four years for a bill for a measure that was announced and was supposed to be retrospective back in July 2017 to find its way on to the Notice Paper. We wish it had been done earlier. We'd been calling on the government to do it earlier, but here we are, in excess of four years later. I think it speaks to the priorities that the government attach to these sorts of issues. They will only do it after they've exhausted every other option. They do the right thing after it becomes the only available option to them because of political pressure that has been brought upon them.

We'll be supporting the bill. I formally move the second reading amendment, which has been circulated in my name:

That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House notes that the Government:

(1)announced that it would deliver a mechanism to provide for the visibility of superannuation in family law proceedings in 2016;

(2)has disadvantaged women in family law proceedings by:

(a)delaying the implementation of this measure;

(b)failing to properly resource the Family Court and Federal Circuit Court; and

(c)abolishing the stand alone, specialist Family Court; and

I understand that it is the desire of the member for Fenner, who's been enthusiastically listening to my contribution in this debate, to second the second reading amendment.

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