Sarah Henderson (Corangamite, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs, I present the committee's report, incorporating dissenting comments, entitled A better family law system to support and protect those affected by family violence: Recommendations for an accessible, equitable and responsive family law system which better prioritises safety of these affected by family violence, together with the minutes of proceedings, and I ask leave of the House to make a short statement in connection with the report.

In accordance with standing order 39(e) the report was made a parliamentary paper.

Leave is granted.

I rise today to present the Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs' report of its inquiry into a better family law system to support and protect those affected by family violence. I thank the Attorney-General for this reference.

The committee adopted this inquiry in March this year and spent a number of months gathering evidence. We received 126 submissions and held 10 hearings across Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney and Alice Springs. We have heard from multiple organisations, advocacy groups, governmental departments and thousands of individuals—many harrowing personal accounts of experiences with family violence and the family law system.

In every suburb, in every town and in every city, family violence is a scourge across Australia. It affects families and individuals in horrendous and insidious ways. Leaving a violent relationship is an overwhelmingly difficult process which may involve significant risk to those affected including children, financial pressures, relocation and emotional turmoil. Some people, of course, are unable to leave a violent relationship and that can lead to tragic consequences.

Whether it be in relation to parenting orders, property division or the protection and safety of children, many people affected by family violence turn to or are required to enter the family law system. However, rather than providing safety and resolution to these families, the journey through the family law system can be a very difficult one and result in increased risk, trauma, prohibitive costs, a lack of justice and unacceptable delays in resolving the issues in dispute. Abuse of the legal system, itself, can also be used to inflict family violence.

Our report builds on much good work of other inquiries and calls for swift and, in some cases, urgent improvements to the family law system.

The system is failing people. Our report reflects our particular concerns about the safety of children. The family law system must ensure that urgent cases and families at greatest risk are case managed appropriately. To do this, it is critical that the existence of family violence is determined as early as possible in proceedings, before key decisions affecting family members are made. There must be a single point of entry into the federal family courts so that applications can be triaged and appropriately case managed to their timely resolution.

The committee received much evidence that the presumption of equal shared parental responsibility is being improperly applied, leading to unjust outcomes and compromising the safety of children. We have recommended its removal. This must be considered in tandem with the need to determine family violence allegations early in the best interests of the child. Not only is this critical to delivering justice and safety to those impacted by family violence, it is also vital for those against whom false or spurious allegations of family violence are made.

Access to justice must be improved. We have also recommended:

The committee is greatly encouraged by the Attorney-General's reference to the Australian Law Reform Commission to review the family law system. Broader reform is absolutely necessary.

Our recommendations endorse a number of reforms already announced by our government—prohibiting cross-examination by perpetrators of family violence, and better support for self-represented litigants are just some examples.

Reform is also required in property matters—family violence should be expressly recognised as a factor, and small claims should be resolved quickly and fairly.

This inquiry has provided the committee with raw insight into the distress, grief and extreme difficulties faced by families affected by family violence who, unwittingly or otherwise, become embroiled in the family law system.

Thank you—a sincere thankyou—to the many witnesses and more than 5,000 people who completed our questionnaire, telling their story, often an immensely difficult task. Your stories have been powerful, your voices have made a difference and they have been heard.

I commend the report to the House.

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I thank the chair for allowing me the opportunity to make some additional comments at the end of what has been a pretty remarkable day in the Australian parliament. I do want to begin with a few thankyous. I note that many members of the secretariat are here in the chamber tonight, including Peggy, Lauren and Sophie, I think. I give a huge thankyou to the entire team of the secretariat. I know that this report wasn't always easy. It was challenging in terms of the content, the issues that we were dealing with and the many issues that had to be thrashed out amongst the committee members. It is terrific that we have been able to arrive at a report that does flag a lot of very important changes to the area of family law, particularly when it comes to the sorts of ways in which we might better support families experiencing family violence.

One of the recommendations I want to very briefly touch on is around the recommendation to remove the presumption of equal shared parenting responsibility. This is quite a big departure from our existing family law but one that we, as committee members, gave a lot of very serious thought and consideration to. Evidence came before us that really highlighted the fact that there were great inadequacies in the way in which the current presumption of equal shared parenting was operating. Despite the fact that there were exemptions available to families experiencing violence, those exemptions were very rarely exercised, and indeed there was substantial evidence to suggest that the presumption was, in fact, contributing to a number of inappropriate and sometimes damaging post-separation parental arrangements. When we were considering, as the committee should do, that it is the interests of the child that should be first and foremost in our considerations and should be the primary presumption, then this presumption of equal shared parenting responsibility really was not living up to expectation. It is a recommendation that I expect might trigger some debate—indeed, that's a good thing—but there are plenty of reasons, as the committee makes clear, as to why that presumption now should be removed.

I would just like to spend the remaining few minutes that I have on some of the points that we still have some differentiation on in terms of the Labor members' view of the report. We've not had a dissenting report, but we have accompanied the report with some additional comments. I'm just going to deal with three issues very quickly. One is to really highlight the issue around resourcing. Time and time again, we took evidence that would suggest that many of the difficulties that families were experiencing when they sought to get resolutions of their family disputes in the court systems were due to an underresourcing of the family law system. We heard of delays of two years and more in some cases. Let's face it: by the time you end up in a Family Court situation, you are usually at the end of your tether. You've exhausted most, if not all, of your options. People are experiencing significant trauma in their life by the time they're at that point, so delays of two years or more are intolerable and sometimes are putting families at increased risk in not having their disputes heard in a timely manner.

In addition to the resourcing issues, there were concerns around ongoing delays in the replacement of judges, whether those judges were retiring or being moved on—really needing to deal with those delays. Getting judges replaced in a more timely manner is going to be critical in order not to continue to add to the already significant backlog of casework that our Family Court and Federal Circuit Court are dealing with. The family law system and the support services around it just need to be properly resourced so that there is timely and effective access for families that require these services. Indeed, lives often depend on them.

The other area I would like to very quickly touch on is just as important. Family law reform is a critical journey for this nation. The Labor members certainly note the Attorney-General's recent instructions commissioning the Australian Law Reform Commission to do a review of the Family Law Act. We think that, given that that review is over a two-year period, that will be a very thorough review of the Family Law Act. We were concerned about some possible pre-empting of those findings here, so we haven't given unqualified support to the reforms suggested in some parts of the report, preferring instead to ensure that the ALRC review is able to run its full course and that those changes or any reform proposals put on the table have been thoroughly considered before being implemented.

The final thing that I would like to end on here is an issue that I know has certainly concerned the Labor members, and that is the inability of the committee to talk face to face with and take evidence directly from the heads of the Family Court and the Federal Circuit Court.

It would be fair to say that there is a very significant difference of opinion when it comes to this matter. Really, it is vital that committees in this parliament are able to freely hear and take evidence from all of the key stakeholders in any inquiry. For the Social Policy and Legal Affairs Committee, which I've sat on in the last term of parliament and in this one, being able to talk directly to those judges has been absolutely critical to the findings of our reports. I know that there was advice received from the Attorney-General that suggested this was no longer possible, but I would like to put on record that this approach really does represent a very drastic and, in my view, detrimental departure from a time-honoured and longstanding effective practice of this parliament.

I would request—and, indeed, I have put this in the report on behalf of Labor members—that the committee and the Attorney-General give very serious reconsideration to their position on this issue. The notion that heads of jurisdiction would not be able to come to talk to parliamentary committees and give key evidence in inquiries is really worrying. There was very clear evidence in the correspondence that came to the committee subsequently that both of those judges were very keen to engage with us. But the advice from the Attorney-General had made it such that they weren't able to do so. So I would ask that the Attorney-General reflect on that and give some serious reconsideration to his position there.

Having said that, I do wish to thank the chair and, indeed, all committee members, for the incredibly hard work that was put into making this report. But the huge thanks, of course, go to all of the people who made submissions and gave evidence. As the chair's comments made clear, that evidence is given at a time when people are under great stress and anxiety, and so it was especially appreciated. We know that sometimes having to relive these stories is no easy task. So, thank you again. I hope this report goes some way towards meeting the expectations and hopes of those people using our family law court systems.

Sarah Henderson (Corangamite, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Very briefly, I also would like to acknowledge and thank the deputy chair and the wonderful secretariat—Emily, Lauren and Peggy—who have worked so hard and done an incredible job to bring us what we both believe is a very significant report and which we hope will lead to very significant reform for families who have suffered family violence. I move:

That the House take note of the report.

Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In accordance with standing order 39(c), the debate is adjourned. The resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.