A family law expert has criticised the Labor government’s push to scrap the legal assumption that parents going through a divorce have equal responsibility for raising their children, warning the move will turn the family unit into a “political football.”
The new amendments will also push child safety and family violence issues further up in the criteria, as it abolishes eight of the 15 factors the court must take into account when deciding parenting arrangements. This includes the lifestyle and background of a child and their parents, each parent’s attitudes to parenthood, the impact of the change in circumstance on the child, and the parents’ prior efforts to make time for the child.
The seven factors that remain include a child’s safety, their opinions, the child’s developmental, psychological, emotional and cultural upbringings, and the benefit of maintaining relationships with both parents.
Families Scramble To Work It Out With The New Law: Expert
Family Law specialist Caroline Counsel noted that the new changes will lead to a situation where “each case will be decided on its own facts,” and the court will need to consider whether parents need to have equal time with their children.
She added that the core principle of best interests “is still the cornerstone of the legislation” but it was “really about removing the concept of equal shared parental responsibility.”
“When your child was born in the hospital, [do you] say, ‘Hey, I’m going to be in charge of education and you’re going to be in charge of religion.’ They don’t do that,” she told Perth’s radio 6PR on Wednesday. “They share it, they talk about it, they work out what’s best for the child in an ideal world.”
“Education is key. The government doesn’t do enough about it. They turn families into political football. And then they literally let loose the law and everybody’s sort of wanders around in the dark trying to work it out.”
The family law reforms, however, have received support from the Family Law Council, which argues that shared care can “actually exacerbate conflict between parents and increase the likelihood of children’s exposure to it.”
“Research indicates that shared care arrangements for children, in circumstances of high parental conflict, have particularly poor outcomes,” the council said.
“The impact of conflict on children include heightened aggression, anxiety, poor social skills, emotional problems, the development of dysfunctional behavioural patterns and clinical disturbance,” the council added, quoting a research paper.
The sentiment is echoed by Molly Dragiewicz, Associate Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Griffith University.
Concerns About False Allegations Leading To Unfair Judgement
But the Men’s Rights Agency opposed the new draft, saying that it would lead to false abuse allegations going under the radar and take away the fathers’ rights to take care of their children.“False allegations of domestic violence flourish in this climate. No man is safe from the easily made accusation and issuing of domestic family violence orders,” the agency said.
“Once served with the interim order issued by a magistrate, where evidence, if there is any, has not been tested, they will find themselves banished from their home, lose access to their funds and possessions, perhaps lose their job, and removed from their paternal role of loving and caring for their children.”
The Family Law Practitioners Associations of Queensland agreed, saying the equal shared responsibility assumption will see parents lose equal access to their child.
“Victims of family violence will be required to make an active application to Court for orders as to parental responsibility and specific issues (e.g. school, medical treatment), and to bear the associated cost, to bring into order a situation where parental responsibility is being exercised in a way with which they do not agree,” the submission said, according to The Australian.
