Nita Green (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I have come to this debate today in the middle of a really important discussion, essentially because there has been a bit of back and forth about the waiting times in Far North Queensland as opposed to the waiting times in Adelaide. But can I just firstly deal with this issue around the 2.0 model. As the minister says, there are some similarities. One of the main differences is that the 2.0 model is a specialised model. It is proposed by people who are experts in this field, and we take the advice of those stakeholders who are working in this field day in, day out, dealing with family violence matters. That's the model that they have proposed, and it is different from the government's model, the model that you're voting for tonight, because it's substantially supported by stakeholders. The government's model is opposed by those organisations. That matters. It counts for something, because those people are the one whose are dealing with this on a daily basis.

I also want to address some of the comments that Senator Hanson made, because I think this is important in the context of us talking about waiting times—how long people who are engaging with this process have to wait to get some sort of resolution, which, as we know, in Cairns is about 41.2 months now. Senator Hanson comes at this with some justification, and some of the things that she talks about—the stress that people go through and the terrible conflict that is created through the family law system—are certainly relevant, and no-one is discounting that. I said in my speech today, and I will call it out if the minister won't, that, when Senator Hanson makes comments that imply that somehow the family law system is the reason why people commit family violence, those comments are wrong. They are wrong, and they should be called out every single time that she says them. It says a lot about this government and this minister that they don't call out those comments, because family violence—