Todays release of the Australian Law Reform Commissions Discussion Paper on its inquiry into the family law system is further proof that the government should slow down its family court amalgamation.
The ALRCs 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. Todays 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 governments preferred timetable to be considered just months after a brand new court system has been created. Moreover, the heavy resource implications contained in the ALRCs 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.
Authorised by Noah Carroll, ALP, Canberra.