Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I note again, Minister, that you've referred to the best-interests factors and how it just refers to a relationship, and the government is proposing to omit the word 'meaningful'. At the moment, it is a meaningful relationship with both parents, and, for reasons that totally elude me, the government seems determined to take out the word 'meaningful'. Is the minister aware that the Law Council of Australia's submission said:

As it has been the product of considerable jurisprudence—

that means it has been tried and tested in courts—

over the last two decades which is available to guide the Court's consideration of the child's relationship with their parents and other people significant to them, it would be undesirable for the Bill to abandon this concept—

of a meaningful relationship? Elsewhere, the Law Council of Australia's submission said:

… the Law Council's Family Law Section and the majority of its Constituent Bodies—

the Law Council's constituent bodies include the Queensland Law Society, from our home state of Queensland—

have expressed concerns that to remove consideration of a meaningful relationship may lead the court to possibly consider that any relationship may be acceptable, with a consequent reduction in time and communication arrangements as being sufficient to meet that lower threshold.

Why, Minister, is the government hell-bent on introducing a 'lower threshold' for the relationship between children and their parents? Don't all children deserve a meaningful relationship with both parents if that can be managed whilst the safety of children is protected?