Roger Price (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have a number of grievances to raise but I want to start off on a positive note and say that St Aidan’s Church at Rooty Hill in my electorate celebrated 50 years and I was very pleased to go along to the mass and the celebrations. I sincerely congratulate all those who put in so much time and effort to make it such an outstanding success. St Aidan’s has had four parish priests. Father Morreau, who I knew briefly before he passed away, was without doubt a legend at Rooty Hill and the huge inspiration and force behind St Aidan’s. Sadly, of the four parish priests we have had to date, three have passed on—tragically, Father Alex Sciberras at the very early age of 52. Again, I say: ‘Congratulations, St Aidan’s. You have served the community well for 50 years. I look forward to the next 50 years, although I cannot promise to be at that celebration.’

There are a couple of grievances I wanted to raise. Firstly, it comes as no secret to honourable members that I have taken a great deal of interest in family law matters and child support issues in the last decade. I was recently shocked by a constituent, who I will call Mrs Smith, who came to see me about a Family Court order she had involving visitation rights of her mother-in-law, a grandparent of the children. In recent times we have seen the role of grandparents increasingly recognised in family law and that has been a good thing. At the heart of the changes has been a move to ensure that in separated families the existing contact and relationship children have with their grandparents does not diminish because of the fact that the parents divorce or separate.

I do not know of any member of this House who would not agree with that proposition, but this was an intact family. This was not a separated family; the grandparent had gone to the Family Court about visitation rights for an intact family. This came as a real shock to me. I absolutely thought there was something amiss with it, so not only did I ring the office of the Attorney-General but I also ended up writing to him. To my horror, I have found that, under this government, the Family Court can interfere in intact families and grant grandparents rights over grandchildren.

I make no apology, both as the member for Chifley and as a grandparent, in saying I abhor this. It is a terrible mistake. I admit I am old fashioned. I believe that marriage is not only a civil contract but also a sacrament. The idea that the Family Court can interfere in intact families in this way is social engineering gone mad under the Howard government. I disagree with it, I oppose it; it is a bad law. Yes, we should have laws that protect children; we should have laws that guarantee they can be raised in a safe environment. But I do not think we should have laws that interfere in families in this way.

I intend to raise this matter with Senator Fielding, who is the Family First senator from Victoria. I wonder what he thinks about the Howard government interfering in families in this way. We have already had a newspaper article saying that the Family Court is taking two years to make access arrangements with children in separated families and that they are not able to deal with their current case load—what is new in all that?—of separated family issues. But, in addition to that, the Howard government is now allowing the Family Court to interfere in intact families.

I have got a simple proposition. I say: unless it is a criminal matter, unless it is a diabolical matter going to the welfare of the child, we should keep the Family Court out of the lives of Australian families and let them get on with the job that they were established to do—that is, to encourage divorcing or separating parents to make sensible arrangements for their children. I raise this in the parliament today, and I am going to continue to raise it because I think this is absolutely abhorrent. It is a step too far and the Howard government should not indulge in such social engineering as to allow and permit the Family Court to interfere with ordinary Australian families this way.

The other matter I wanted to raise was the issue of the 40 dead seals in Victoria. I am pleased to say that there was absolute outrage at what appeared to be a couple of aberrant fishermen who were responsible for the death of these 40 seals. It has been in the papers; it has been on TV—and rightly so. But there is a great deal of hypocrisy, not only in the media but also in this government. As I have said before, we have 78,000 illegal fishermen coming to our shores annually. The measures that the government has announced have reduced this to 72,000 illegal fishermen every year.

And what do these illegal fishermen do when they are fishing for sharks? They harpoon dolphins. Can I repeat that? For the two- or three-kilometre fishing lines that they set, they harpoon dolphins—not one, not 40, but I suspect hundreds if not thousands. There is not one bit of community outrage about what is happening each and every day on our northern borders. It is an absolute disgrace. I grieve for the seals, but I worry about the silence, particularly from the government, about the ongoing death of dolphins in our northern waters. Something ought to be done about it.

I have taken a great deal of interest in illegal fishing. The opposition had set up a task force, ably led by the member for Chisholm. She did an excellent job, and we have uncovered a lot. One thing we did, thanks to the honourable member for Lingiari and Senator Trish Crossin, was to go to Maningrida. There we saw some sea rangers, and they are doing a good job. I put the following question on the Notice Paper:

Has the ACS provided sea rangers with caps and mugs and does it intend to provide sea rangers with sugar, flour and tobacco.

For any honourable member who has not read it, the answer the Minister for Justice and Customs has provided is this:

Customs has provided items such as caps and mugs, which have the Customs Hotline Logo and 1800 … number inscribed on them. There is no intent to provide sugar, flour or tobacco—

for the Northern Territory Indigenous sea rangers. I am terribly relieved, because they get no decent training; they do not get any pay—unlike the reconnaissance units set up under NORFORCE, who are inducted and properly trained as reservists. They get absolutely nothing except caps and mugs. Thank God they are not getting sugar, flour— (Time expired)