Lidia Thorpe (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak against the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia Bill 2019 and the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2019 and to make absolutely clear that the Greens will be voting against the proposals in these bills. What the Morrison government is trying to do by merging the Family Court with the Federal Circuit Court is outrageous. No-one asked for this merger. No-one wants this merger. This merger is almost universally opposed. Yet here we are with this absolutely brainless plan to abolish the Family Court of Australia.

It was the Whitlam government that had the visionary idea of establishing the Family Court. This was back in the day when we knew what the Labor Party actually stood for. The Family Court was established to protect the people before it, particularly children, families, and survivors of family and domestic violence. The Family Court did this by being a standalone specialist family law court working in a system of collaborative, culturally safe and co-located services. The model that the Family Court operates under is unique and has been held up as a model of best practice internationally. The radical and misconceived changes in these bills would effectively put an end to that.

The government is claiming that this merger will help reduce delays and backlogs in the Family Court, but there is very little evidence to suggest that this will actually happen. The government always trot out their completely discredited PwC report as proof that this merger will be more efficient. That PwC report is nothing more than a six-week desktop review of operational data by two accountants. Yes, the family law system needs fixing, but these bills are not a fix at all.

I know firsthand from my own personal experience that the system needs fixing. I know what it's like to rock up at the Family Court not having childcare facilities and going with your children to fight for them and for your rights and your protection. I know what it's like to stand in a queue, have your name called out over a loudspeaker and feel embarrassed about that. I know what it's like to be put in a little room because a perpetrator is in the building and so is his family. I know what it's like to feel scared. I know what it's like to be a victim of family violence and certainly a survivor of family violence. We do have a lot of work to do in the current system, but getting rid of the current system is not the answer.

We know we need to have more culturally safe support services for women and children. We know that there's not enough funding and resourcing available for good, competent, culturally safe services to get women and girls to safety as well as provide counselling, financial counselling and safe and secure public homes. What the Family Court actually needs is more resourcing, more public money, to employ more judges and to have better support services, particularly for the women and children who are appearing in these courts, many of whom are victims of family and domestic violence. This proposal won't fix the problems in the family law courts which have grown largely out of Labor and Liberal governments' neglecting of the Family Court. Better alternatives have not been considered; otherwise, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

What families need and what they look to the parliament to provide is safety, security and as much certainty as possible during the pandemic and beyond. At the core of so many of the issues confronted by the system is a chronic and sustained lack of proper funding and resources for the Family Court and the Federal Circuit Court and a mismanagement of resources. This includes a failure to appoint and maintain sufficient and appropriately experienced judges and associated staff and insufficient funding to maintain the counselling and assessment services previously provided by the courts. Failing to strengthen the system has produced unacceptable delays and costs that directly impact on the accessibility and quality of justice. In my own personal situation, I waited two years for any justice and any letters back from the system that was meant to be there to protect me.

Unlike the flawed merger proposal in this bill, the government should have properly considered the much better Family Court 2.0 model, the model that is actually favoured by key stakeholders, the people who actually work this every day. This is what they're saying:

This model proposes a straight-forward "lift and shift" of the Federal Circuit Court's family law jurisdiction and judges into a new lower division within the stand-alone, specialist Family Court.

This would mean that the Family Court judges would be in division 1 of the Family Court of Australia and Federal Circuit Court judges who are hearing family law matters would move across to division 2 of the Family Court of Australia. This model has been in force for many years in the Attorney-General's own state of Western Australia. It was good enough for him when he was the Attorney-General of Western Australia, but somehow it isn't now? Go figure. This Family Court 2.0 model was also recommended by the 2008 Semple report and has been endorsed by key stakeholders—again, people who know their job better than the people in this place—including the Law Council of Australia, Women's Legal Services Australia and former Chief Justice of the Family Court Elizabeth Evatt AC.

Unlike the government's merger proposal, the Family Court 2.0 model would have the significant advantage of promoting safety for children and adults by preserving access to the services of a specialist family court. It is particularly important that we build the safest, strongest, most caring system for the groups of people that are disproportionately impacted in the family law and family violence systems, like Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and children.

The need for increased and culturally safe specialisation of courts to improve decisions and outcomes for families is supported by the evidence of the many inquiries into the family law system. The Family Court 2.0 proposal would instead produce what people clearly expect of their legal system: a single specialist family court to address the needs of families within an integrated system of collaborative, culturally safe and responsive support services. The alarming prevalence of family violence in the system makes specialisation critical to promote safe engagement for survivors with the courts and our justice system from the time a matter is filed, through appropriate triage, active case management and quick resolutions, all while providing excellent, culturally safe wraparound services. A specialist family court must not be destroyed on a mirage that this will fix problems which, in reality, require more resources and holistic reform.

The merger proposals in these bills are nonsense, and you cannot make sense out of nonsense. If the government were serious about fixing the issues in the family law court system, then they would be properly considering the alternative of Family Court 2.0, which is supported and preferred by stakeholders. They would be giving an additional $310 million a year in funding for legal assistance providers as identified by the Law Council—Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander legal services, community legal centres, women's legal services—to make up the shortfall of successive cuts.

I will read out a statement that was put out 35 minutes ago by the legal fraternity, which has come together to protest against the merger of the Family Court with the Federal Circuit Court:

More than 155 stakeholders in Australia's family law system have now signed an Open Letter to the Attorney-General opposing the Government's flawed bill to abolish the specialist, stand-alone Family Court.

These signatories represent a range of professions and community organisations who work with Australian families and include 11 retired Family Court and Federal Circuit Court (FCC) judges, in addition to former Chief Justices the Hon Elizabeth Evatt AC and the Hon Alastair Nicholson AO RFD QC.

The merger bill would collapse the Family Court into the generalist, chronically under-resourced and over-burdened FCC. The bill was listed without warning overnight as the first item of Government business on Tuesday, despite not being included on the Government's draft legislative program for the Senate this week.

Stakeholders have called for three years for the merger not to be passed out of concern it would have devastating impacts on families, result in a loss of structural, systemic specialisation and dismantle the appeal division.

My final word is: who are the experts in this space? Why aren't we listening to them? The Australian Greens will not be supporting the bills.