Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Courts Administration Legislation Amendment Bill 2015. This bill at one level is quite simple in that it merges the corporate functions of the Federal Court, the Family Court and the Federal Circuit Court. I say up-front that the Labor Party are broadly supportive of this legislation. I will give a little bit of background. The Family Court and the Federal Circuit Court have jurisdiction to hear family law cases. As the shadow parliamentary secretary to the shadow Attorney-General I have a particular focus on family law. It was my area of law before coming into parliament. Since receiving this responsibility from the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Attorney-General I have consulted right across Australia with family lawyers, I have employed a family law barrister and I have had a lot of consultation on family law—from Cairns to Townsville, Brisbane, Toowoomba, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and even Perth.

The consultation with family lawyers and legal aid, who deal with the consequences of the breakdown of relationships, was certainly heartening and disturbing. It is always difficult when love turns to hate. I think 91 per cent of the filings in the Federal Circuit Court last year were for family law proceedings. I should point out up-front that, when relationships end or disintegrate, many people sort out their own lives outside of the court process or just need the arrangements they have come to signed off. Unfortunately, there will always be some relationships that require legal intervention. Seventy per cent of people who have contact with the family law legal process do not go to a trial but, unfortunately, some do.

The Federal Circuit Court and the Family Court hear complex family law cases, often involving family violence, abuse, mental health issues or drug addiction. On this day I would like to particularly acknowledge the judges and the staff who deal with the people presenting this information. It is often difficult information. Unfortunately, people can misrepresent facts. Often in these proceedings people are unrepresented and that creates additional stress where judges are trying to be supportive but obviously also need to be able to test the evidence. They need to be able to test what people are saying. Unbelievably—and it is hard to accept—sometimes people lie in these circumstances. People lie because when love has turned to hate they do not always act logically.

Sadly, there has been lately some strong and consistent criticism about the state of the Family Court in Australia. That criticism has been sustained for quite a while. From Launceston to Cairns family lawyers are speaking up and writing to the shadow Attorney-General and to me. They are writing to the Attorney-General because of the same concern, which is that delays are increasing. I note that the member for Parramatta and the member for Isaacs touched on this in their earlier presentations. People are waiting, in some cases, up to three years before they can get in front of a judge—three years.

There is no doubt that families are suffering because of these delays. When I say 'families', it can be the children especially, because the family law has a particular focus on children, but it is also the mum and the dad. All can suffer because of the uncertainty and the delay. A child living with parental conflict already has a tough cross to carry, but if they have to wait another year it would seem a lifetime for that child. If the conflict is continuing, and in some cases escalating, because of the delay, over a period of years that can literally be the child's whole life. Their childhood is locked into a set of circumstances where there is no certainty and the uncertainty creates extra damage, as I said, not just to children but to mothers and to fathers.

These delays have been made intolerably worse by the Attorney-General's tardiness when it comes to replacing judges in the family courts. The coalition have been in office for 910 days. It does seem a lot longer, but it is 910 days. Yet it took Senator Brandis, the Attorney-General, 560 days to replace a judge of the Family Court in Sydney. It has taken him 375 days to replace Justice Bell in the Brisbane registry, with the replacement judge still not yet sworn in—although I do wish her well. Across the country there have been Federal Circuit Court judges retiring and long delays in their replacements being appointed. I should just point out that this is not due to dollar issues. These positions are funded and budgeted for, and there is no saving for the government by not replacing the judges when they are going to retire. Remember: in the Family Court, we knew for about 40 years that Justice Bell was going to retire. There is a set time, so it is not as if it was suddenly sprung on him that Justice Bell was going to retire.

Delays in replacing retiring judges have caused huge backlogs of work that these registries will never recover from. If a judge gets sick, it is not as if their docket is taken care of. These delays are creating backlogs of misery and bottlenecks of heartache where families suffer because of the Attorney-General's tardiness. The former Federal Circuit Court judge Giles Coakes delayed his retirement for six months so that there would be no delay, yet still there was no replacement ready when he left mid last year. Judge Coakes reportedly 'accused the government of neglect for failing to appoint family law judges in a timely manner' and said that 'the delay in appointing judges had caused court lists to blow out and children had been put at risk'. I repeat that: children had been put at risk. Judge Coakes went on to say:

These (cases involve) … dysfunctional parents because of drug abuse, alcohol abuse, domestic violence in all its forms and mental illness … That represents a real danger to the children. Until a case can be heard and finalised by a judge, those risks … are continuing.

The Attorney-General finally appointed replacements for two judges in the Family Court and two judges in the Federal Circuit Court last week. Only now will this take those courts to a full complement of judges. However, the damage caused by the delay has already been done.

It is not as if the Attorney-General was busy with his Arts portfolio. That was stripped from him by Prime Minister Turnbull because of incompetence in that portfolio. He had time to focus on being Attorney-General. These delays are unforgivable. These are courts that are already under enormous pressure due to the nature of the cases that come before them, because people are often motivated by, perhaps, less than pure reasons when it comes to children and former partners. They can make all sorts of accusations, and it can be very difficult for judges to extract what is in the best interests of the child, what is truthful and how society will be better for their decision. A lot of faith is put in the reports prepared by the people that prepare the reports. It is not exactly a lucrative area of work, yet these reports about children are relied on as if they had been written in stone and brought down from Mount Sinai. So, if the Family Court report writer does not get it right, there can be incredible consequences for children. The Children's Commissioner, Megan Mitchell, was just this week reported as questioning whether the family courts can properly deal with the damage family violence does to children who are the subject of contested parenting applications.

So I would ask the Attorney-General, when it comes to dealing with the Family Court and the Federal Circuit Court, to do some broader consultation—to talk to the lawyers that work in this area. That is obviously very important. Family law lawyers are a very special breed of lawyer, I would suggest. It is a particular calling. So consultation with them is important, but so is consultation with the women's legal services, the people that provide advice about domestic violence, and the men's groups who are involved in this process as well. I am not sure that that consultation occurred with the Attorney-General's latest effort, which is the binding financial agreements. I am not sure if there was a lot of consultation with the women's legal services throughout Australia. That is not what I am hearing at all. So I am hoping the Attorney-General can do his job and focus on family law, because so much damage has been done by the delays.

As I said, I recognise that he appointed six more judges recently, and I particularly praise the Attorney-General for the fact that some of them had family law experience, but obviously I could then spend another couple of hours talking about the consequences of the legal aid cuts and the uncertainty out there in the community legal centres, where people are waiting for cuts of up to 30 per cent to be rolled out—people that want to feed their children, pay their mortgage and all those things that lawyers need to do. Some of them will take their experience, leave the community legal centres and find work elsewhere, and that will be a great shame, because it is not exactly well-remunerated legal work, but it keeps society humming along. That is not just me, a bleeding heart leftie, saying that. The Productivity Commission actually said this. They said we needed to pump more money into the legal aid system. The Productivity Commission, not exactly a bastion of left-wing ideals, are saying there should be more money pumped into it.

The bill before the chamber will merge the corporate functions of the Federal Court, the Family Court and the Federal Circuit Court in order to make savings through efficiencies, a measure that was announced in the 2015 budget. The three courts will share their corporate services. The CEO of the Federal Court will have responsibility for managing these shared resources. There has been consultation with the shadow Attorney-General, and I would commend those who are doing the merger on the consultation with unions and with those who will have to work under the new regime. Obviously all change is stressful, but the people merging these corporate services have done a good job. I would commend them for that. I am sure those reporting to the Attorney-General will report back that I do have something nice to say about some parts of the process.

This measure was first announced in the 2015 budget, as I said. Labor supports efforts to streamline corporate functions of the three federal courts. Although there is some concern from the Family Court as to how this measure will be implemented in a practical sense, but I am hopeful that will be sorted out. It will achieve some modest savings—it will not go anywhere near resolving the problems facing the courts at the moment—but Labor supports this measure as it is a start. They say that a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step, so I am hoping that the Attorney-General does not rest too long after taking that first step. I wish him well with this piece of legislation.

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