Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the House of Representatives be requested to make the following amendment:

(1)    Schedule 1, page 3 (before line 5), before item 1, insert:

1A  Subsection 5(18) (and the heading)

Repeal the heading and the subsection, substitute:

Principal carer—a child may have more than one principal carer

      (18)    If:

             (a)    a court orders that more than one parent is to have a significant proportion of responsibility for the care of a child; and

             (b)    the difference in percentage of responsibility for the care of a child between the two parents is 12% or less;

both parents must be treated for all purposes of this Act as a principal carer for the child.

1B  After subsection 5(19)

Insert:

   (19A)    Notwithstanding subsection (19), if a court orders that more than one parent has a significant proportion of responsibility for the care of a child and the difference in percentage of responsibility for the care of a child between the two parents is 12% or less, the Secretary must make a determination that each parent the subject of the court order is the principal carer of the child.

I will not prolong this any longer than necessary because people are well aware of the arguments on principal carers. This amendment is to amend the inequities in the act around principal carers to ensure that parents who are fifty-fifty carers or parents for whom the difference in percentage of responsibility for the care of the child is 12 per cent or less both have access to the principal carer provisions. The minister was in the process of updating us on the review of this issue that the department, as I understand it, is undertaking. I ask the minister what status that review has at the moment.