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

The issue that I'm having is this: in good faith, I am putting forward an amendment and I'm asking the government to seriously consider a way to improve this drafting. The clause is there; I understand what the clause means. The issue I have and the issue others have is: it says, 'the court must consider any views expressed by the child'. What it doesn't do in that particular clause, to give clarity to parents who are actually looking at this, is literally then say to the court that 'the court is required to take into account the child's maturity level of understanding or any other factors that it considers affect the weight the court should give to the child's view', and we've established that's not expressly there.

What I'm saying is: an unrepresented litigant opens a piece of legislation and they will only see the words. The words don't contain that additional part which says to them that the court can also take into account these additional factors such as the maturity level of understanding et cetera.

So, what I'm asking is: do you accept that, when someone opens the legislation, all they're going to see is the words. The way it's written creates a problem, because the impression it creates is that the child's views must be given weight no matter how young or immature the child is, and this has a particularly strong impact on people who are acting in the shadow of the law.