Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Madam Deputy Speaker Claydon, as you are very well aware, there is a grave concern in this country when it comes to family law proceedings, particularly in the Federal Circuit Court and the Family Court of Australia, in situations where domestic violence is alleged and, as it is in many family law cases, where accused perpetrators are able to personally cross-examine their alleged victims during proceedings. This is an opportunity for retraumatisation and revictimisation of people who have fled domestic violence situations at home.

In order to deal with this issue, the courts need to be armed with the power to prevent parties from personally cross-examining their exes. There also needs to be a means by which to ensure that parties can then go and get a lawyer to perform the cross-examination on their behalf. Without that second limb, obviously there is a grave risk of the denial of natural justice. Remember, these are allegations at this stage—they are not proven—and it is very important that parties be able to indirectly, through a lawyer, cross-examine each other should the need arise in order for natural justice to be afforded. So you need two things: the court to have the power to refuse people being able to personally cross-examine their ex and the court to be confident that the person who has been refused the right to personally cross-examine their ex will be able to get a lawyer. That requires law reform. It also requires legal aid funding to ensure that the legal support is available for both parties. Of course, if one person is getting a lawyer, you do not want the other one left unrepresented, as so many parties are in the family law courts.

The Productivity Commission, way back in 2014, recommended reform to allow the courts to prevent the personal cross-examination of alleged victims by alleged perpetrators of family violence in family law proceedings. This is policy that Labor took to the last election. We took to the election a commitment that would equip judges with the power to make orders preventing the personal cross-examination of victims by their alleged perpetrators. We also made a funding commitment of more than $40 million in additional funding for legal aid so that courts could be confident that the parties would be able to get the representation they would need in order to avoid the denial of natural justice.

This is a reform that has been called for, as I said, by the Productivity Commission but also by Women's Legal Services Australia, former Australian of the Year Rosie Batty, Fair Agenda and many other people. It is an important reform and a really commonsense one to provide permanent protection for family violence victims and survivors in the family law courts. We recommitted to this policy back in November 2016 on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, which is of course also White Ribbon Day.

I was very pleased on budget night when the government announced that it would commit to cross-examination reform to prevent the personal cross-examination by alleged perpetrators of victims; however, I was surprised to note that there was no accompanying funding commitment to enable additional legal aid to ensure that people would not be left unrepresented and to prevent the denial of natural justice. Accordingly, I have some questions for the minister.

How will the commitment from the government be facilitated? How will the government ensure that persons who have been refused the right to personally cross-examine the other party in family law proceedings are nonetheless able to have the other party cross-examined by a lawyer? How will they ensure that there will not be any denial of natural justice to either party in those proceedings? When can we expect to see the release of the proposed amendments to the Family Law Act 1975 that were foreshadowed on budget night? Finally, will the government make a commitment to fund additional legal aid for parties in this situation or does the government expect existing legal services to absorb the cost of this additional representation?

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