Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Joint Select Committee on Australia's Family Law System second interim report, Improvements in family law proceedings. I do so after we received 1,700 submissions to this inquiry. We had, I think, 12 public hearings and 13 in-camera hearings. This report makes 29 recommendations to the government to improve the family law system in Australia, 29 recommendations which I urge them to take seriously. The Family Law Act 1975, since its inception, and the family law system have been the subject of ongoing review and reform. In fact, almost 70 reviews of the family law system have been undertaken since 1974. These reviews reflect the growing diversity of family structures and changing views in contemporary Australia.

The work of this committee has followed two recent and extensive inquiries into the family law system: the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs inquiry into how the Australian family law system can better support and protect those affected by family violence, which tabled its report in 2017, and the inquiry of the Australian Law Reform Commission, which delivered 60 recommendations and was tabled in 2019. Two years on and the government has not responded to the Australian Law Reform Commission's 2019 report, despite it being one of the most comprehensive reviews of Australia's family law system since the commencement of the Family Law Act. Instead of responding to the report, they established this review with a political agenda and as a cynical pay-off for support of a legislative program. This government has a complete lack of regard for expert opinion and, despite the immense efforts of the current inquiry—where we received over 1,700 submissions—I question their propensity to respond to this report.

As was clearly demonstrated just weeks earlier, they rushed through legislation, before the release of this report, to merge the Family Court of Australia and the Federal Circuit Court of Australia, ignoring expert opinion, in pursuit of their own agenda. The Attorney-General continues to cite the findings of a six-week desktop review of data from two PricewaterhouseCoopers accountants as ample evidence for progressing the merger. This Liberal government has made the most radical change to the family law system in over 40 years based on a short desktop review by two accountants—a review that has been widely panned and thoroughly discredited.

What is clear from this inquiry and the plethora of information from previous reviews is that the family law system does not meet the needs and expectations of many who use it. What we uncovered, not exclusive to this review, is that the costs are too high, the extensive delays in the court system cause undue harm and stress, and the adversarial nature of the family law courts is not suitable. The role of family consultants, expert witnesses and independent children's lawyers also need to be evaluated.

Another important issue that needs to be further evaluated is the impact that family violence is having on proceedings and also the interaction of the family law and family violence jurisdictions. It is clear that this system needs overhaul and that the very appropriateness of the legal framework must be assessed. The Morrison government's standard response is to set up inquiry after inquiry—when they've had the family law commission's reports—and do nothing in relation to those matters and the recommendations.

The issue of delays in the Family Court is not new. As highlighted in the Australian Law Reform Commission's first interim report, one of the key themes emerging from its inquiry into the family law system was that it was too slow. Access to courts and services were so delayed that people told us they had to wait excessive amounts of time to receive assistance or take steps towards resolving their dispute. Many felt frustrated by this and some said that their dispute escalated and/or they were left in situations that were unsafe for themselves and their children while awaiting access to courts.

The key reasons for delays are the lack of resources for the courts; matters simply cannot be transitioned through the court process in a timely manner. This has occurred due to chronic underfunding of the family law system by consecutive Liberal governments and failure to make timely appointments of judicial officers and registrars. This has created a backlog of cases, produced delays and frustrated the proper management of the resources that the courts have.

The government has given itself a big pat on the back by announcing four newly budgeted jurisdictional positions on the Family Circuit Court, but they haven't filled these positions. Disgracefully, the Morrison government won't even invest the resources that it has committed. Right now in my home state of Tasmania there is only one judge to preside over family law matters—one judge! The Morrison government has failed to appoint another judge to hear family law cases. This is causing delays across the whole state and exacerbating the anguish and frustration of families, who are already in very difficult circumstances. Now we have the situation where that one judge is doing the work of three, and this just should not be accepted—it's unacceptable. The acting Attorney-General, Michaelia Cash, would not even say when the replacement of both judges would be appointed, or if the government will do anything at all to alleviate the pressure on the sole remaining judge.

These courts are dealing with parents, parental arrangements and financial settlements, and the delays are putting more and more stress on people's lives. And at the centre of this are always the children who are involved. We have heard gut-wrenching evidence about the impact that going through family breakdown has on children and on those individuals. But when there's delay after delay through Family Court circumstances then there's an absolutely devastating effect on the mental health of these young children. We know that, nationally, there are five vacancies in the Federal Circuit Court—five empty chairs that the Morrison government is either too lazy or too callous to fill.

Allegations of family violence are present in most matters that reach the Family Court. This inquiry was set up because there were grumblings from some members and senators—they said that claims of violence were not always true. Although there are problems with family violence orders, their value in providing protection should not be underestimated. We found that there is no empirical evidence to support notions that false allegations are widespread in the family law system. That has to be emphasised: there is no evidence to say that women go to court and lie about family violence. If anything at all, women are hesitant to raise domestic violence and family violence. Research shows that false allegations are much, much rarer than the issue of victims and survivors not reporting abuse—minimising and denying abuse by men who use violence. That's the reality of the circumstances, as addressed in this final report. It's about the delays in the Family Court proceedings. If these are not addressed, we'll see drawn-out procedures and more devastated families—children who will continue to self-harm because of these outrageous delays and the lack of funding there to support these families going through these breakdowns.

We've had enough reports and we've had enough recommendations; it's actually time this government acted. This is no longer about photo opportunities and a Prime Minister who is full of spin. We want to see a properly funded court system that can deal with these family circumstances as quickly as possible, and for that system to be resourced to have the registrars and the expert judges who can sit in deliberation about these important issues. To provide that is a responsibility of the federal government. We're calling on them to act on this report. Don't allow it to gather dust like the other reports. The family law deserves so much more. (Time expired)