Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Hansard source

The opposition will not be opposing the Family Law (Divorce Fees Validation) Bill 2007. The purpose of the bill is to amend the Family Law Act 1975 to validate retrospectively the charging of an unauthorised filing fee for divorce applications in the Family Court of Western Australia. In July 2005 the filing fee in the Federal Magistrates Court for divorce applications under the Family Law Act was increased. The equivalent fee in the Family Court of Western Australia, which has its own Family Court, would normally have been increased to match the Federal Magistrates Court fee to ensure consistency across Australia through an amendment to subregulation 11(1A) of the Family Law Regulations 1984. However, due to an administrative oversight this did not occur. The Family Court of Western Australia assumed the necessary amendment to the Family Law Regulations had been made and began to charge the increased fee.

An amendment to that subregulation 11(1A) of the Family Law Regulations, effective from 9 October last year, authorised the Family Court of Western Australia to charge a fee equivalent to the fee applicable at that time for a divorce application in the Federal Magistrates Court. The bill before the House will validate retrospectively the charging of the fees that were in fact charged for divorce applications in the Family Court of Western Australia for the period 1 July 2005 to 9 October 2006. The fees that we are talking about apply to divorce proceedings which were instituted in a court constituted by a stipendiary magistrate who is the principal registrar or a registrar of the Family Court of Western Australia as well as to divorce proceedings instituted in another court for transfer to such a court. The fees which have been specified in clause 3 of the bill were the fees that had been in fact charged for filing a divorce application in the Family Court of Western Australia during the two periods that I have referred to. So the opposition will not be opposing this legislation.

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