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

To summarise the point, none of the major inquiries have supported the presumption in its current form. The point is equally made that none of those inquiries recommended repealing it either. That is the point that both Senator Hanson and the opposition will continue to make. It is also why we have moved an amendment in that regard.

In terms of the presumption, and exploring further Senator Hanson's line of questioning, the presumption of equal shared parental responsibility was one of the key recommendations of what was a bipartisan and unanimous report, titled Every picture tells a story, handed down in 2003 by the committee chaired by Kay Hull AO. I want to read an extract from the committee report. At 2.56, it said:

… the disappointment with the implementation of the 1995 reforms to the FLA has been a failure in practice, particularly in court outcomes, to match the expectations of Parliament for shared parenting. The committee believes that the Parliamentary intention could be significantly reinforced if courts were required to consider the presumption of shared responsibility in each case that they consider.

Noting that it was, as I stated and as was recognised widely at the time, a bipartisan and unanimous report, does the government accept that in making those recommendations the committee did so after careful analysis of many years of evidence?