Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Hansard source

I rise this evening to speak on the Family Law Amendment Bill 2023 and the Family Law Amendment (Information Sharing) Bill 2023. As someone who has had the unfortunate experience of having to go through the family law courts and other areas of family law, this is a very fraught and difficult space to which legislators bring their minds and their experiences. When we look at the impacts of family breakdown across our nation not just on parents, mum and dad, but on grandparents, on the children themselves and the broader community, they are significant. They are long-lasting. In some cases, they are absolutely devastating on young people's development, on their ability to build loving and sustainable relationships into their adulthood and, indeed, on the economic foundation for some of the parents—obviously flowing through to the children.

Unfortunately, tens of thousands of families across this country find themselves, often through no fault of their own, confronted with a bewildering, conflict-driven system of trying to work out arrangements, particularly for the care of children—but increasingly who pays for that care and which parts of it,—and it is a very, very difficult path to navigate, particularly if you are not families of a lot of means. The cost of lawyers and legal advice, the cost of mediation, the cost of having a former partner who would seek to score personal wins by drawing you into a legal debate that could take years to resolve have significant and severe economic, emotional and mental impacts.

It happens everywhere. This is commonplace. We all have a story of a best friend, a family member, who has had a traumatic exposure to the family law system in this country. We need to, not only as legislators but also as individuals and community members, aim for a system that resolves disputes as quickly and as cleanly as possible, with minimum impact on children and, I'd have to say, on the parents' bottom line, because resources of both the father and the mother need to be applied to raising their children and ensuring they have the very, very best start in life. We need to make sure that the children's best interests are always served.

Some measures in these bills, particularly the information-sharing bill, are very welcome to me and coalition senators. But there are issues around some of the proposals being put forward. Many of these changes are moved by good intentions. As we saw, it was 'pocket rocket' Kay Hull, who is now President of the National Party, I might say, the former member for Riverina who, in the Howard government, began the very difficult conversation in communities and with specialists around what changes we needed to make as a nation to the family law system that would better serve children's interests, that would better recognise both parents and that would not assume some of those cultural assumptions, I guess, that we as a country have had in our family law system. That was a good thing.

The coalition's very real concern, though, is that although we join with the government in recognising the problems, many of the solutions presented in the bill remain untested and may make things worse for Australian families. While the economic pressures are being very severely felt by Australian families right now, we don't want to make any harder. When you look at divorce rates, one of the biggest impacts is actually economic pressure. It's not that people don't fancy each other any more, or can't remember why they bothered to fall in love with each other back at the start anyway, or have any less commitment to jointly raising their children—it is the pressures of modern life which often see marriages and partnerships break down, to the detriment of children.

Right now, mortgages have gone through the roof. I think we've seen 11 cumulative interest rate rises, and if there were a couple over six months, families can buffer that, but when you've had one after another after another—many of those fixed mortgages are ending, coming off that mortgage cliff. Families have borrowed and fixed their mortgage for the last couple of years at the incredibly low rate that we saw through COVID, but are now faced with their mortgage payments tripling and quadrupling, with no consequent increase in their earning capacity. In fact, this week we've seen real wages go back to the tune of six per cent. That is the actual reality of what's been played out in our suburbs and our regional capitals. Real wage is the figure that people feel in their back pocket and bank accounts while simultaneously facing energy prices on the rise, food inflation ahead of where it was 12 months ago, and mortgage pressures. That is all playing into a family dynamic that isn't going in the right direction. So we need to have a family law system that puts children's interests first but also we need to make sure that both parents can leave a relationship in a way that allows them to be the very best parent they can be, in both of their capacities.

As legislators, we should be very cautious about making things worse because we haven't tested and really delved into the impacts of some of the solutions presented by this bill. The most significant part of the schedule would repeal most of the factors that courts must consider when determining the best interests of the child, and that list of factors is incredibly long. There are two primary considerations and 14 additional considerations. The list runs to over three pages and almost 900 words. It's very confusing and difficult for parents and courts, and it absolutely should be simplified. Not everybody can afford a King's Counsel to take them to the law courts, and not everybody is eligible for legal aid, particularly in family law matters. While wounds are very real and raw and present in the breakdown of a partnership, it is very easy for either side to run to the lawyers and then inflict cost after cost on the other party. The more complex we make this, and the harder we make it for mum and dad in suburbia to negotiate this legal system, the more we push them into higher individual legal costs, which in the end will impact their joint ability to provide for their children. The simplicity, I think, is underestimated.

When emotions are high, people make decisions that maybe they shouldn't. Maybe, in the fullness of time, after many years, when they settle into a rhythm and pattern of single parenthood but as joint custodians of their fabulous children, they'll wish that they had approached this differently at the very beginning. So I'm very, very concerned that this bill sets up a scenario where we push the aggrieved party or the other into the arms of lawyers, and therefore force both parties into a system which just leads to more costs, more complexity, more anxiety and more stress. None of this, when you get home, makes it any easier for the children they're both trying to care for.

One of the issues requires the court to consider any views expressed by the child. Obviously, in principle, that's absolutely appropriate—that a child should be heard. But any parent who sits in this chamber and doesn't know that a four-year-old, a six-year-old or a two-year-old can be coached by either parent, who they love very, very much and who they trust very, very much, is kidding themselves—absolutely kidding themselves! I think that concern has been raised by the profession and should be listened to. I think back about to how I would get certain of my four fabulous young adults on the bus in the morning, or to put their uniform on or to do things that they didn't want to do. Parents are very, very persuasive influencers of their children's behaviour, as they should be. That's why we've been given the responsibility and the great privilege to parent. But when partnerships break down, and we've all seen it with families and friends, one party or another doesn't always have the best interests of the child at the very core of their behaviour. That's a result of pain, of hurt and of anger et cetera. But to assume that isn't the case is actually neglecting the lived experience of tens of thousands of Australians who've had to go through this particular situation.

It's worth noting the concerns raised by some in the profession that the Labor list risks overlooking a number of other important factors, including the child's maturity or level of understanding. It's much easier to get a two-year-old to put their gumboots on than a 12-year-old and it's much easier to get a three-year-old to eat their broccoli than a 13-year-old! So maturity and developmental capacity have to be part of the court's assessment. Right now, there are serious concerns that it's not.

Has a parent been engaged in parenting in the past, including their obligations to maintain the child financially? Think of the FIFO worker who genuinely loves their child. They're off working incredible hours, far away from family and support, and they haven't necessarily been involved in the day-to-day obligations of raising the child. But they have absolutely been involved in financially supporting the child. How do you reconcile both of those different roles? Then there's the likely impact on a child of a change in circumstances; we can't foresee that. So there are still many, many questions for this bill and for us to actually seek to obtain a greater level of understanding from the experts—from those who are delegated to act on behalf of children, like child psychologists. That's the level of evidentiary fact that we need to take into account when we consider this bill, because we do need a legal system and a family law framework that works for parents and for children and which means that the next generation of Australians will get all the support they need, despite a family breakdown, to be the very best humans they can be as adults.