LAW REFORM COMMISSION PAPER SHOWS NEED TO WAIT

Today’s release of the Australian Law Reform Commission’s Discussion Paper on its inquiry into the family law system is further proof that the government should slow down its family court amalgamation.

 

The ALRC’s discussion paper, which is more than 350 pages long, makes more than 100 recommendations for change to the family law system. Many of these proposals are for change to the Family Law Act.

 

Proposals include another look at family dispute resolution, greater use of a triage process for families conducted by registrars, and a simplified court process for matters involving small property pools. In addition, a recommendation calls for a ‘specialist list’ within the court system for high risk family violence matters, with the use of professionals with specialist family violence knowledge.

 

The government has claimed that the final ALRC report, due on 31 March 2019, will not have any bearing on issues of court structure, and so it is not necessary to hold  back its proposed family court amalgamation until after that date so that its findings can be taken into account. Today’s issues paper shows that to be an absolute nonsense.

 

How is it possible that a new triage system of cases or a simplified court process can be examined without reference to what the court system as a whole would look like? How can a specialist list for family violence matters be created, when the government is proposing the abolition of the family court and the removal of specialist expertise?

 

It makes absolutely no sense for such wholesale recommendations for reform to be treated separately to questions of structure, and – according to the government’s preferred timetable – to be considered just months after a brand new court system has been created. Moreover, the heavy resource implications contained in the ALRC’s recommendations should be taken into account at the same time as the family court structure proposals, which have their own costings attached.

 

It is time for the government to wake up and get real – it should listen to stakeholders, crossbenchers and Labor and stop its mad rush on its family court proposals. To ignore these calls could lead to chaos in a system which surely could not bear it.