The federal government has announced plans to revamp the strained family law system, arguing there needs to be a greater emphasis on the interests of children in bitter parental disputes.
Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said courts and judges would be presented with six "simple" principles for making custody arrangements for children, and the presumption that both parents should be considered to be on equal footing in parenting disagreements would be removed.
He said reform of the family law system, which has long been criticised as slow, expensive and traumatic for families at vulnerable moments in their lives, had been put off for too long.
"In the nine years the former government was in office, there were at least two dozen reviews into the family law system, with hundreds of recommendations that were simply ignored," Mr Dreyfus said.
"The draft laws … would replace the often confusing law around parenting arrangements with six simple, best interest factors for courts to decide what is in the best interest of children."
The principles include considering the safety of the child in any custody dispute, the ability for either parent to provide care for their child, the benefit for a child in maintaining a relationship with their parents, and the child's own views on the arrangements.
Problematic law
The presumption of "equal shared parental responsibility" has long been labelled one of the most problematic parts of Australia's family law framework, with fears it could incentivise abusive partners to litigate parenting disputes.
Zoe Rathus, senior lecturer at Griffith University Law School, said the removal of that measure was "most important".
"We've also found that equal shared parental responsibility — which requires parents to consult on the significant issues after separation — now, parents who are able to do that, they do that anyway.
"Parents who are unable to do that, that really did provide an avenue of ongoing harassment and intimidation for some abusive partners to their former spouse, who felt that they could never escape them."
Labor was fiercely critical of the Coalition's record in managing the family law system, joining members of the legal community to rail against the former government's plan to merge the Family Court and the Federal Circuit Court.
That measure passed federal parliament in February 2021.
The proposed changes, which the federal government want passed into law this year, do not look at breaking the two courts apart.
The Coalition was also accused of kowtowing to One Nation leader Pauline Hanson in launching a parliamentary inquiry into the family law system in 2019.
Mr Dreyfus said the legislation would also look at the definition of "member of the family", to make it more "inclusive of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander concepts of family and kinship".
