Author: annerleylabor

Our family law system needs urgent reform

annerleylabor

This week in parliament I called for the government to amend section 61DA of the Family Law Act which contains the “presumption that it is in the best interests of the child for the child’s parents to have equal shared parental responsibility for the child”.

Unfortunately, this section is commonly misunderstood to presume that parents should exactly equally share their time caring for children post separation. This is rarely a practical outcome. Moreover, this not being what the provision means, the misconception has created an incentive for violent men to litigate and this is dangerous to women and children trying to escape from their abusers.

The murder of Hannah Clarke and her beautiful children has devastated Australians. Hannah took all the right steps to protect her children from her abusive, estranged husband and yet, it wasn’t enough. This is a wakeup call. The Australian Parliament needs to change our system in order to better protect victims of domestic violence.

There is no doubt that the Family Law System desperately needs improvement. The House of Representatives report of the Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs had 33 recommendations to improve the family law system and the Australian Law Reform Commission 2019 report into the family law system put forward 60 recommendations.

The Women’s Legal Service Queensland has also called on the Morrison Government to follow the recommendation of the ALRC report and immediately remove the problematic section from the Family Law Act.

We cannot sit back and allow the domestic violence crisis that Australia faces to continue. Amending section 61DA is not the complete solution but it is a small, practical step that should be taken.

Morrison rorts fix way too late

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Apologists for the Bridget McKenzie saga argue fatuously that this is all simply an attempt by Labor to undermine the Morrison government’s election victory.

But this is not a simple, politically partisan issue.

Former Liberal leader, John Hewson, who played a leading hand in the demise of Labor’s Ros Kelly, asserts that McKenzie’s actions are far worse. He writes that “this is an open-and-shut case of the abuse of her position for political gain.”

Nationals frontbencher, Darren Chester, has refused to back McKenzie, lamenting that “the greatest deficit we face now … is the deficit in the trust between us and the public”.

A number of journalists usually unsympathetic to Labor including Niki Savva, Peter van Onselen and now Andrew Bolt have decried the blatant bias associated with this sorry mess.

As it becomes apparent that decisions made by McKenzie’s office did not align with the recommendations of Sport Australia, but did show a close correlation with the submissions of marginal electorates targeted by the Coalition, Scott Morrison now declares that he could extend the funding of projects to some of those clubs that missed out. Too late Mr. Morrison, the election is over!

Frank Carroll