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

Well, Senator Hanson, the good news is that committees can make recommendations, but we don't need to refer to the recommendations, just refer to the stakeholder feedback that backs in the position that the government takes. So we can just throw out all of the reports and the recommendations, as long as we can find a submission—and that's easy to find; the government just directs someone to put in a submission that supports the government's position. This committee has taken a very, very bizarre twist tonight because it would appear that it doesn't matter what report Senator Hanson and I put to you, if you don't like the recommendation you'll just find a submission that supported the view you've put forward, even though in the final recommendation it does the exact opposite.

I would then put to you that, despite the implication in the Attorney's words, the decision to remove the presumption was not informed by the recommendation. I'll make it a rhetorical question, because you're clearly not going to refer to the actual recommendation. You'll refer to submissions that back in the Attorney-General's position. That's not what the recommendations said.

That was a recommendation that was directed to the ALRC, and it actually followed through, as Senator Hanson knows. On 14 March 2018, it released an issues paper that expressly referenced the committee's suggestion of removing the presumption of equal shared parental responsibility as a potential reform to the decision-making framework in part 7 of the Family Law Act. But, in fact, after the ALRC did its due diligence, in its report it recommended the wording of the presumption be changed, and it even prepared draft legislation to do so. Isn't that correct? Please ask the advisers. I don't expect you to know.