Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

It would appear that we're going to be on the roundabout again of one particular answer being given all night. As we explore that answer, unfortunately, we do not seem to get any further down the path in terms of an explanation for the poor mums and dads who will be going through this process. Unfortunately, when we hit 8.30 it will all be over for this bill.

The seventh amendment that I've moved on behalf of the coalition, on sheet 2702, adds an overarching objective to the practice and procedure provisions. As drafted, the objectives would allow an approach that is safe, quick and cheap—and entirely destructive of whatever is left of the family relationship. The amendment says that the court should also aim to minimise acrimony. I would have thought that that is exactly what you want to do. If you're in the Family Court system—let's be honest—it is a highly, highly contested situation. I would have thought that the amendment, providing that one of the court's aims should also be to minimise acrimony, is one that the government would be able accept. It also adopts a clear recommendation from the profession.

The eighth amendment, on sheet 2073, opposes the entirety of schedule 8. The only purpose for that schedule—and you've got to love the Attorney-General, seriously—is to provide a trigger for the Attorney to demerge the family courts after the next election. I note that, in an article written a few weeks ago, regarding this part of the act and whether or not this was a path the government was going to go down, a spokesperson for the Attorney-General, or it may have been the Attorney-General himself, basically said that was a matter for the government. If you are not going to do it, (a) why would you put it in this bill and (b) why wouldn't you come out and say, 'No, that is not the intention of this schedule.' And yet what we know, from the limited committee inquiry, is that it is a purely political decision that came out of the Attorney-General's office. I am still unable to find any evidence that it was recommended. As I said, it's a political decision that came out of the Attorney-General's office.

The ninth amendment, on sheet 2706, requires a review of this bill in its entirety. We have shown good faith here and required that the review be independent. Unfortunately, the Attorney was not prepared to match that commitment. Instead of acting in the best interests of families, he has set up an option to find a friendly reviewer that will recommend what he wants to hear so he can further pursue his ideological family law agenda—again to the detriment of those thousands of families who, unfortunately, are going to come into contact with this system.

Without the amendments that we propose, the bill itself can only have a very sad ending for so many. These are sensible amendments. The amendments that we have put forward reflect the considered view of independent bodies and experts—including, as I said, the Australian Law Reform Commission—in particular, in relation to the total removal of the presumption of equal shared responsibility, another frolic of the Attorney-General. There's no evidence that the Attorney-General took into consideration the recommendation of the Australian Law Reform Commission. As I said, they are sensible amendments that take into account the considered views of independent bodies and independent experts. I would ask that, as senators are looking at these amendments, they—even the government—do so in the spirit of bipartisanship. All we want to do is improve the bill. We acknowledge that a deal has been done. Obviously the bill will go through, but I would just ask the government to reflect on our amendments and the fact that they have been put forward, as I said, in a genuine effort of bipartisanship and to actually make the bill better.

Minister, in March, the Attorney-General published a piece in the Herald Sun, the Daily Telegraph, the Advertiser and the Courier Mail in which he said:

For most children, it is overwhelmingly in their best interest to have a meaningful relationship with both parents after separation. The proposed amendments recognise this.

But Professor Patrick Parkinson—and, on any analysis, he is a leading expert in the field and a key architect of the existing legislation—said in his submission that 'the new bill essentially removes from the act almost every single reference to the importance of both parents being involved in children's lives after separation'.

In fact, directly contrary to the Attorney's claims, the government, in the legislation we have before us, has quite deliberately—it is a deliberate act—and expressly removed any requirement to consider a meaningful relationship at all. I go back to the Attorney-General's quote:

For most children, it is overwhelmingly in their best interest to have a meaningful relationship with both parents after separation. The proposed amendments recognise this.

They are actually the Attorney-General's words. You then have the evidence of one of the leading experts in the field who points to the bill itself and says that this is not reflected in the bill. The Attorney-General's claim that interest proposed amendments recognise that it is overwhelmingly in the best interests of children to have a meaningful relationship with both children is misleading, Minister. Can I ask why he made that statement?