AUSTRALIAN BAR ASSOCIATION CALLS FOR CAREFUL PARLIAMENTARY SCRUTINY OF THE FAMILY COURT’S FUTURE
12 August 2018
The Australian Bar Association President, Noel Hutley SC says “the ABA remains of the view that any legislation to restructure Australia’s family law system requires close and careful examination by Parliament”.
“The structure and implementation of any reform of the area can only be determined if all interested parties have access to and appropriate time to consider, the most up-to-date information available and particularly the PwC report which the Commonwealth AttorneyGeneral has referred to be as being the basis of the current proposals,” the ABA’s President, Noel Hutley SC, said today.
To date, this material has not been released and there has been no public consultation about any proposed measures. The ABA considers that measures of this importance should be the subject of careful consideration by Parliament with the benefit of public input from the broader Australian community including the legal profession and representative bodies.
The Family Court of Australia and its specialist judges perform important work in difficult and complex family law cases but the court has been under-resourced for many years. The ABA remains of the view that the court should not be dismantled after 40 years of operation without careful consideration of the value that maintaining a properly resourced specialist family court would bring.
MEDIA ENQUIRIES: Cindy Penrose 0420 309 420 or ceo@austbar.asn.au