Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This morning I would like to talk about a rort—a rort that is going on in the federal family courts of Australia. It is a rort that involves excessive fees, price gouging and virtual extortion; it is nothing other than a scam. I am not going to name names today, but I put those on notice involved in this rort. If necessary, I will name names in this parliament. In a truly competitive market, I have no objection to anyone charging what the market will bear. In our free market, capitalist society, they are entitled to charge as much as the customer will pay. But where we have a situation where a court orders a single expert to do what is called a 'report' or an 'analysis', the court is granting them a monopoly. These people cannot exploit that monopoly to price gouge and charge excessive fees. This is an area which should have government regulation where we set and regulate the fees if the court did give them a monopoly.

I would like to give you an example of one of the current practices. I have a Family Court order in front of me, and it states that the participants in the Family Court, the husband or the father and the mother, should attend a particular Mr X on a certain date for a further single expert report. It goes on that the cost of Mr X's report will be borne equally by the parties and that they will pay the sum of $8,000 each. So Mr X is entitled to a sum of $16,000. When it was asked how this is calculated, it worked out at a fee of $700 per hour. This is for a psychiatrist. If I look at the Australian Psychological Society's national schedule of recommended fees—the recommended fee schedule in place from 1 July 2015 to 30 June 2016—it sets out the recommended level of fees for an hour of consultation at $238. So, because the courts are giving this particular individual a monopoly position

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Proceedings suspended from 11:21 to 11:34

I will continue where I left off. I was giving an example of the current practice of this rort whereby a scheduled fee by the professional association is around $230 an hour but in this case, because the person involved has a court-ordered monopoly, they are able to charge what they like. They are charging 200 per cent above the court ordered fee—a charge, including GST, of up to $700 an hour. I have no objection if in a fair, free and open market they want to charge $7,000 an hour, but where the court orders a participant in the court proceedings specifically has a monopoly and charges such an excessive fee—a 200 per cent uplift, a $500 per hour uplift—it is nothing other than a rort. We should have legislation that sets a schedule of fees for these expert witnesses if they are to be given a court ordered monopoly. The situation is very similar to what I remember in a Chevy Chase movie. Chevy Chase crashed his car and had to get his car repaired. He took his car to the repairer and asked, 'How much will it cost to get repaired?' and the repairer said, 'How much is in your wallet?' This is the same situation that we have going on in our Family Court today, and it is unacceptable.

Secondly, I have great concerns over some of the secrecy provisions in the Family Court. I would like to quote Mr J Robert Oppenheimer from the 1950s. He said:

We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism … We know that the wages of secrecy are corruption. We know that in secrecy error, undetected, will flourish and subvert.

We need to end a few practices in our Family Court. We need to end the practice of secrecy. We need to shine a light on the practices that are currently going on in our Family Court. If we are going to continue to have the practice of single experts, a practice which I am greatly concerned about, we must have a schedule of professional fees they can charge which must be reasonable. Regarding the current practice—these current rorts—I am putting these people on notice that they are being watched. This parliament is going to shine a light on their activities.