Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

One of the issues here, and a point you just made, is that the situations that we hope do not occur very often, the situations where the circumstances are the most tragic and the most difficult, are the ones that end up in court. It is the hard cases that end up in court. Many of those, though not all of them, involve domestic violence, family violence and abuse. And it is in those circumstances where those two objects, (a) and (b), are going to be in direct conflict. I agree, and I hope, that children should have a meaningful relationship with both parents and not be in need of protection. Of course that is what we all want to see for our children. But there are circumstances where difficult cases end up in court, and it will be in the really hard cases where (a) and (b) will be in conflict. I am deeply concerned about the implications. The chamber has already rejected the amendment proposed by both the Democrats and the Greens to restructure this and get rid of the two-tiered system. But at least we can help to give guidance by defining what we mean by a ‘meaningful relationship’ and specifically ruling out a meaningful relationship being one where the child is subject to violence and abuse by the parent in that relationship.