Andrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Cash, we have five minutes, just to let you know.

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

Chair, thank you for actually pointing that out, because the disappointing thing about the next five minutes is: this may well be the last five minutes in which we, the Australian Senate, have an opportunity to properly scrutinise, I believe, one of the most significant pieces of legislation to come before this Senate. And why do I say that? Because there is, on the Notice Paper, and the government will move, later today, a motion that will gag debate as of this evening. All questions will be put, with no further scrutiny of this bill: no ability to actually scrutinise in detail the very considered and sensible amendments that the opposition is putting forward—again, in relation to one of the most important bills to come before the Australian Senate.

As I said this morning in relation to another debate, why do we say this is one of the most important bills? Because Labor seems to conveniently forget that family law touches almost every Australian, whether it is you, personally, going through the family law system, or whether it is a member of your family or a friend going through the family law system. This is, without a doubt, one of the most distressful periods in a person's life. And God forbid you are one of those people that cannot settle your family law issues outside of the court and you actually need to get into the family court system!

This bill, unfortunately, is a flawed bill, and any of the consequences—in particular, in relation to any further distress or any further delay—that families around Australian experience as a consequence of this bill going through in the form that is before us will be squarely on the head of the Attorney-General of Australia.

As I may not have an opportunity to talk to our amendments this afternoon, I have circulated, on behalf of the opposition, nine separate amendments to this bill. We have done a lot of work on this bill. Why? Because we, as the opposition, want to see the family law system in Australia function in the best interests of those who have to go through it. That is why, when we were in government and I was the Attorney-General of Australia, we combined the two courts—we brought them together. On any analysis, the steps that we took in relation to combining the Family Court of Australia and the Federal Circuit Court of Australia have made them better—not for us here in this chamber, but for the Australian families who are going through the system.

We also brought forward the first tranche of amendments to the Family Law Act. They were amendments that we agreed, as a Senate, were important amendments. We were able to agree on them. And they have again made a good difference to the family law system in Australia.

But, sadly, this bill, I have grave fears, will not make a positive difference. In fact, because of the way the bill is drafted, I fear for Australian families that, under the Albanese Labor government and under Mark Dreyfus, as the Attorney-General of Australia, there will be unintended consequences in relation to the impacts of this bill.

In particular, our second amendment adopted the Australian Law Reform Commission's recommended drafting on the best way to address misunderstandings on the presumption of equal shared parental responsibility. It accepted the evidence that the presumption as currently drafted can often be confused with equal time, but we agreed with the Australian Law Reform Commission. What has Mr Dreyfus done without any justification at all? He has completely bypassed what the Australian Law Reform Commission said, and, instead of redrafting, he has thrown out the presumption altogether. As I said, it's a great disappointment: so much for transparency, so much for scrutiny.

Progress reported.