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

Just pursuing the line of questioning that Senator Hanson is going down in terms of the evidence that's actually been taken into account by the government in coming to its determination that, instead of accepting the recommendation from the Australian Law Reform Commission, it would repeal, in total, the presumption of equal shared parental responsibility.

I have referred to the 2009 report, the Family Courts Violence Review, released by the Honourable Justice Richard Chisholm. Your answer to my question, 'Did the Attorney take the report into account?' was that the joint select committee had taken into consideration reports as listed. The issue I have is the Attorney-General can't have taken that report into account because the way Justice Chisholm described his recommendations was as follows:

These recommendations are intended to retain the essential ideas of the Hull Committee in 2003, while removing difficulties and unintended consequences that appear to have occurred as a result of the way the original idea has been translated into legislation.

In fact, recommendation 3.3 of Justice Chisholm's report said that the provision that sets out the presumption'—Senator Hanson will like this—'should be retained and amended.' But the Attorney expressly decided to ignore advice given to his government when it was last in power. Isn't that correct?