Sue Lines (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Hansard source

It is quite an honour to follow Senator McCarthy and Senator Dodson. If there are two people in this chamber who have some expertise around First Nations groups, then it is these two. Senator Dodson's track record is enormous, over many, many years. He is not known as the father of reconciliation for nothing. And yet his contribution today, pleading with the government, pointing out how bad the merger of the court systems will be for our First Nations people, has fallen on deaf ears, I suspect, as he said. Senator McCarthy has lived her life in the Northern Territory, a territory which has very vulnerable citizens living in it. Senator McCarthy has been a minister in a Labor government in the Territory. She has some expertise in these matters. And yet the comments that she made, in the very valid contribution that she made, about the likely impact of this legislation on First Nations people in the Territory will, I suspect, be ignored. I've had the honour today of chairing a lot of the Senate proceedings and I've heard a lot of the debate. No-one has put to me yet why this merger makes sense—no-one. Senator McCarthy, when she started her speech, alluded to the fact that the minister's website, under the justification for the court mergers, has five reports, none of which recommend what is currently being proposed.

The other issue that disturbs me greatly is: it's one thing to have a debate in this place and do the best you can to negotiate to try and get improved outcomes as particular parties see fit; it's quite another just to trade your vote off for some improvement in your state or some commitment to something else at a later stage. That is not democracy, and there is not a single group outside of the Morrison government who thinks this proposed merger has any merit at all. I don't know why that falls on deaf ears. Surely someone on the government side is listening. We've yet to learn about why this merger is taking place. Certainly none of the legal centres in this country agree to it. None of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander legal centres think it's a good idea. Former judges don't think it's a good idea. So why is the Morrison government doing this?

We've seen, particularly this week but certainly since the time of Mr Abbott's election as Prime Minister, that this government really hasn't done much towards the advancement of women. Is this yet another example of that, because women are disproportionately affected by the outcomes of the family law court?

Is it that continued ignorance and do-nothing approach in relation to women that's driving the Morrison government? Their budget this year was criticised from all sorts of quarters because it didn't deliver to women. Is that why the government are doing this? Is it a punishment of young children? We've again seen the Morrison government's childcare policies not deliver for children. Is that what they're doing? Australian families are now out of pocket in relation to childcare costs. Is it a continuation of not caring about the welfare of children that's at stake here?

We've seen the Abbott government, the Turnbull government and the Morrison government try to force more responsibility and costs onto the states. Is that what's driving this move? I think it was Mr Turnbull who came up with the idea, at the snap of his fingers, that somehow the states should fund their health systems. Mr Morrison is very good at saying it's not his responsibility. Is this merger about forcing the states to pick up more responsibility? When we go to welfare issues and the negative outcomes that will undoubtedly result from this merger of the court system, who picks up the cost for that? Not the federal government; it will be the states, because they're responsible for welfare.

Today we heard from Senator Dodson and Senator McCarthy about the appalling state of child removal, which could get much worse with a court system that's merged. Personally, I've had experience with the family law court. My experience was pretty reasonable and fairly quick, because I was able to settle most things amicably with my former partner. We both had to go to the family law court and explain how our children would be dealt with. I'm an educated, middle-class woman, but, even for me, that was pretty onerous. I can't imagine how women and, indeed, men will get on in a merged system where those support services are much harder to access, or may, in fact, fall away.

I've also been inside the criminal court system. I'll tell you what: the court building in WA is very stark. The family law court is actually quite a nice building, but the central law courts are not a place you want to be. They're full of police. We already know about many people's poor interaction with the police, but the police are there because they've got other matters to transact. Nevertheless, that's what you are confronted with. They're heavily secured, as they should be. But vulnerable people who have to go through that and have their bags searched—maybe they've got children with them—are already in an emotional state. That's a very poor experience. WA is not a heavily populated state, but the central law courts are a big place to find your way around. I've sat on a couple of jury trials. I did my duty. But to see the vulnerabilities that I saw as a juror was awful, and merging our court systems will put all sorts of people in the same area. It's just a very poor system.

I've spoken about this in this place before, and a lot of Labor senators made their contribution today. Is this being done because this was put in place by Gough Whitlam, the great social reformer? We know that the Morrison government certainly doesn't like Medicare. It attacks Medicare at every opportunity. The amazing reforms that Mr Whitlam put in place have lasted us through to this day. One of the really important reforms was no-fault divorce and the establishment of a special court to deal with family break-up.

As a young person, or even as an older person, it's a big deal when you commit to someone through formal marriage. You see your life before you with a partner, maybe children, owning a home together, having your soulmate at your side—it's a big deal to make that commitment. For many couples in Australia, including me, it doesn't work out. At that point, you don't want to be having to deal with more vulnerabilities or having to go to court in an emotional state and not be dealt with in a fair manner. In a Family Court situation, you're not dealing with people who are on top of their game, in lots of cases, because their emotions are all over the shop. That is made much worse when, as we've heard from many other senators, it's coupled with domestic violence and family violence. If you have also experienced domestic violence, imagine then having to go to some kind of merged court.

I want to talk about my mother. When my mother went through her divorce to my father, it was before Gough brought the reforms in, so they had to invent a reason for their divorce. The other point was that in the days that my mother got divorced there was a list in the local newspaper of who was getting divorced and the reasons—the reasons! My mother was a prominent woman in the local community. She was a deputy principal of a primary school. She was devastated at having to come up with a reason. Her marriage, like mine, simply broke down. The easiest way to get a divorce, when we didn't have no-fault divorce, was to imagine the reason was adultery. Imagine how my mother felt putting the reason for her marriage breakdown as adultery, and imagine when that was published in the paper. What a scandal! My mum was still in love with my father when they divorced, and having to go through that bogus system of having it published in the paper that (1) she was divorced and (2) that it was adultery, must have been awful. So, thankfully, with the evolution of the specialist Family Court we've done away with no-fault divorces. But, gee, you have to wonder. I believe it was under the Abbott government, though I stand to be corrected, that Kevin Andrews, the minister at that time, came up with this notion that people were going to make money available for couples counselling—it was $200, from memory—to try to stop people going down the divorce track. So we've seen a little tiny snip, snip: before you get divorced, we'll just give you a bit of counselling. This is from a government that stands in this place every day of the week and tells us how it doesn't interfere in the lives of individuals. It doesn't look over people's shoulders. It doesn't tell them how to spend their money. Yet, here we have a government that wants to dictate how you get a divorce.

Of course, you've heard from many senators in this place today about the resource issue at the Family Court, and none of us are glossing over that. There is a resource issue. We've had a conservative government that's been slow to appoint judges and that has starved the court system of dollars. I remember when Senator Cash—I think it was Senator Cash—and Senator Brandis, who was still around, decided to take money off the CLCs. So, for whatever reason the government has—which is completely hidden not only from Labor senators and other senators who oppose the bill in this place but from anyone connected with the Family Court—we have a government that wants to reduce funding to the courts. When the government took funding away from the community legal centres, they denied it for about eight months. Senators Brandis and Cash finally had to fess up that, yes, they had done that, and they quickly slipped some of the money back.

I mean, I've seen how those community legal centres work. They operate off the smell of an oily rag. We're a wealthy country. We should have a properly resourced, separate family law court. I hope tonight we will hear from the minister why the government are wanting to merge the courts, because it makes sense to no-one except the few people in the Morrison government who came up with this idea. Roll out the organisations that support this merger because we haven't heard from them. No-one in here has named any of them. We've just heard opposition after opposition from 'leading specialists', from 'former judges'.

It is a good system. Yes, there are issues with it. It is a resourcing issue. Ask anyone and that's what they will tell you. I can't believe we are here debating a bill tonight which has essentially been traded away for some kind of partisan interest. It's disgraceful and that is not how democracy works in this country. You have a fair debate, you have a fair process, and you don't go and do a side deal with a couple of senators to get your legislation passed; that is not democracy.