Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I am not going to talk about every Democrat amendment in this group—(6) to (9), (11), (12), (14), (15), (18) and (19). That is a drafting technique I could have used this morning, quite frankly. In any event, I have learnt. One of the difficulties when you do it this way is that you then end up with me having to say this: we have little problem with many of the amendments in this group, especially those that would remove the hierarchy of considerations in the best interests of the child test—we moved similar amendments in the House through our shadow Attorney-General; however, we do oppose other amendments in this group.

In particular, we strongly oppose the amendment to omit section 60CC(4). We consider that section to be one of the bill’s strong points. Indeed, it comes from an idea proposed by our shadow Attorney-General that the court should be able to consider how parents have lived up to their responsibilities in the past when making orders for the future. It seems a critical point: if you are going to make orders for the future there is a view that you can look at what the conduct of the parties has been in terms of their responsibilities to live up to their previous orders. There might be circumstances that can be taken into account which might explain why they were not lived up to, for argument’s sake, or arguments as to why the orders were followed. In other words, there is enough flexibility in there for people to say there were reasons. They can provide their reasons and ultimately a court will be able to adjudicate on that area. It ensures that those past issues can be taken into account so that people do not use orders for other purposes. If you do you will have to account for that.

Labor’s concern is that without this sort of provision parents could stand on their rights when it suits them and ignore their responsibilities when they choose. Parenting—and I think we have said this a couple of times—is about responsibilities to children. At some point I will have to live up to mine and explain why I am here. At some point I am going to be called to account on that, and rightly so, I suspect. Parenting is about taking the opportunity to be involved in the kids’ lives, to communicate with them, to spend time with them and to ensure they are properly provided for. I am really sorry I have to say all that standing here on a Thursday evening. This section reinforces those responsibilities and Labor strongly supports it.

Labor is not in a position to agree to the Democrat amendments—effectively in group 5 as I indicated earlier—but I did want to go through section 60CC(4) again. It is not only an amendment that has been put in the House by our shadow Attorney-General but also a very sensible one that creates and will allow as much fairness as possible in this area so the parties can live up to their responsibilities. If we are going to use the word ‘responsibility’ then the parties should have something to strive for. In other words, be responsible with these sorts of things.

It seems to me that a lot of the arguments that surround this are about people being irresponsible or having different views and different issues and not looking at what their responsibilities are to their children. It is always cause for reflection when you have to put that into legislation to ensure people will undertake those responsibilities, but if we have to we are not going to resile from it. These are necessary. Ultimately I will come to our amendments, but at this time we are not going to accede to the Democrat amendments.