Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to go to another one of the amendments I want to put up, which we touched on yesterday, about fifty-fifty shared parental responsibility. Under that, I've made reference to the United Nations as well, if you have a look at that. We touched on that yesterday. It's on sheet 2135. It states:

Presumption of equal shared parental responsibility

(3A) For the purposes of paragraph (1)(c), the court must apply a presumption that it is in the child's best interests for the child's parents to have equal shared parental responsibility for the child.

…   …   …

(3B) The presumption does not apply if there are reasonable grounds to believe that a parent of the child (or a person who lives with a parent of the child) has engaged in:

(a) abuse of the child or another child who, at the time, was a member of the parent's family (or that other person's family); or

(b) family violence.

(3C) The presumption may be rebutted by evidence that satisfies the court that it would not be in the best interests of the child for the child's parents to have equal shared parental responsibility for the child.

That is actually in my amendment. But I also have this note:

Paragraph 60B(b) provides that it is an object of this Part to give effect to the Convention on the Rights of the Child done at New York on 20 November 1989. This includes articles 7, 9 and 18 of the Convention which relate to:

(a) a child's right to know and be cared for by both parents; and

(b) a child's right to maintain personal relations and direct contact with both parents on a regular basis; and

(c) the principle that both parents have common responsibilities for the upbringing and development of the child.

There was a survey done on a father's impact on child development. We all know who are the main people who really are upset about this. I'm not disregarding mothers, because they've been denied the right to see their children too, but a lot of my grievances are coming from fathers who, for what they feel is no apparent reason, are denied the right to have contact with their children or see their children at all. They've actually been broken by this. These are loving families. There's no violence—or there may be false accusations brought against them which haven't been proven—but they are denied the right to see their children. A blog article entitled 'A father's impact on child development', which is on the website all4kids.org, has the subheading '10 facts about father engagement'. I'll just read out a couple:

Children who feel a closeness to their father are: twice as likely as those who do not to enter college or find stable employment after high school, 75% less likely to have a teen birth, 80% less likely to spend time in jail, and half as likely to experience multiple depression symptoms.

The other point is:

The quality of the father-child relationship matters more than the specific amount of hours spent together. Non-resident fathers can have positive effects on children's social and emotional well-being, as well as academic achievement and behavioral adjustment.

Elsewhere, the article says:

According to the 2007 UNICEF report on the well-being of children in economically advanced nations, children in the U.S., Canada and the U.K. rank extremely low in regard to social and emotional well-being in particular. Many theories have been explored to explain the poor state of our nation's children. However, a factor that has been largely ignored, particularly among child and family policymakers, is the prevalence and devastating effects of father absence in children's lives.

For starters, studies repeatedly show that children without fathers positively present in the home suffer greatly.

Another report says:

"It is important for the majority of children to continue the involvement of both parents after family separation," Professor Chisholm wrote. "It is right that the legislation should stress this, because, it seems, it was once assumed that it is enough for children to have one involved parent with the other (typically the father) providing financial support and weekend entertainment.

"It is important that the legislation should not be seen to support that assumption."

Professor Chisholm argued that the clause should not be repealed but rather reworded to direct a court to "presume that it is in the child's best interests that both parents continue to have parental responsibility, unless it considers that this would not be in the child's best interests in the circumstances of the case".

The suggestion comes after a 2019 Australian Law Reform Commission—

the people you refer to as those from whom your legislation came—

recommended the provision not be abolished but rather reworded to allow "joint decision making about long-term issues".

Professor Parkinson, who was a key adviser to the Howard government … warned the government's proposed changes would have damaging consequences for parents, children, courts and social cohesion.

You're proposing to take out fifty-fifty shared parental responsibility, so you're going to allow the courts to say that whoever gets the child most of the time is going to have complete say over this. It goes far beyond this. Parents should have an involvement in their children's lives. It goes beyond even what school they go to and their education. It also goes to our nation's problem with gender dysphoria. Are you going to allow one parent to have complete control over the child and say whether they can go and have puberty blockers or mutilation or whatever, while the other parent has no say in it whatsoever? That's virtually what you are doing here. You are taking away a parent's right to have a say over their child's future and their wellbeing, and you are going to let the courts decide this.

Children are brought into this world by two parents. They only have one mum and they only have one dad. They can have step-parents, by all means, but they only have one mum and one dad. You are denying these parents their rights, by taking this out of the legislation. You are going against the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. You are denying parents their constitutional right under section 51(xxii) of our Constitution. This legislation, as far as I'm concerned, is unconstitutional and, based on section 51(xxii) of the Constitution, it could be challenged in the High Court by parents out there who are denied the right to see their children for no real reason. Minister, will you look at my amendment that I've put forward to again include in the legislation the fifty-fifty shared parental responsibilities of the parents?