Kay Patterson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I will intervene here to give the minister some time. I feel that the intonation in Senator Wong’s voice suggested that she was saying, ‘Will he deign to respond,’ basically, to put words into her mouth. These are quite complex issues. This is not the minister’s portfolio area. He is, I believe, answering questions as they come up with advice from the departmental officers. I think it is reasonable to expect that he get that advice from the departmental officers given that he is not the minister actually responsible. From my experience I think that the minister is giving very clear answers.

My answer to the question that Senator Siewert has asked is that from all of the work that Professor Parkinson did on the Parkinson report, we can see that, when you are at the point of shared care of 35 per cent or over, the relationship that has broken down is usually still at a stage where people can actually cooperate. All of the evidence showed that those people actually take into account the children and the issues facing the children. So it is not as big an issue as when there is a total breakdown. Also, our family relationship centres have been designed to try to assist families to discuss these sorts of issues that face children in families. So I think the claim that we are not taking account of children is not valid. I do think that, when you have a fifty-fifty shared arrangement, you would find greater cooperation than you might otherwise expect.