Louise Markus (Greenway, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Attorney-General. Would the Attorney-General advise the House on how the government’s family law reforms will protect families from violence? Are there any alternative policies?

Philip Ruddock (Berowra, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for Greenway for her question. I know of her particular interest in the importance of families, including support for families and protecting children from violence. This government has introduced the most significant changes in family law that we have seen for some 30 years. These reforms are designed to protect children from the risk of violence or abuse, making that a primary factor to be considered in child custody cases, along with, as I have said for some time, the right of children to know both of their parents. This legislation will also go a long way to changing the lawyer-driven culture that dominates family separation in Australia today. We want children to be protected from exposure to violence and from growing up with conflict when parents separate, but our view is that the court should be the last resort, not the first.

Yesterday the member for Gellibrand issued a press release which claimed that Labor generally—I note the word ‘generally’—supports these changes. Yet the amendments she proposed were clearly designed to undermine them. I read the release very carefully. She said:

Family law should not be about a tug-of-war between mums or dads, or a brawl between Liberal and Labor.

I have to say that there has been no brawl between the government and the Labor Party—at least, the majority of members of the Labor Party who served on the parliamentary committee that considered these matters.

I noticed amongst the amendments that the Labor Party is proposing: an amendment to the definition of family violence, which overturns the committee’s recommendation; removal of the two-tier hierarchy of best interest factors, which would remove the hierarchy approved by the committee; changes to equal, shared parental responsibility—to be moved back to joint parental responsibility—which overturns the committee’s recommendation; omitting the cost provisions relating to false allegations, which overturns the committee’s recommendation; and a modification of the enforcement provisions, which overturns the committee’s recommendation.

It is quite clear that, in relation to these matters, the member for Gellibrand wants to remove the requirement that parents who go to court should first make a genuine effort to resolve their issues by mediation. This and other amendments that she proposes clearly conflict with the views of the member for Lowe, the member for Chifley and the member for Denison, who were party to the committee report and whose recommendations I have accepted. So the important question is not, in the terms the honourable member used, whether or not we will have a brawl between Liberal and Labor; the question is whether we will adopt the measures proposed by a committee that had bipartisan support from the member for Lowe, the member for Chifley and the member for Denison or whether we will adopt the unilateral view of the member for Gellibrand on this issue. I think children deserve better than the status quo in our family law system, and I would hope the parliament would support the measures that we are vigorously pressing, which had the support of so many members of parliament from both sides.