Family court merger bill referred to Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee

05/12/2019

The Commonwealth Attorney-General has today reintroduced the government’s proposal to merge the Family Court into the Federal Circuit Court to Parliament. The Attorney’s media release is available here. Information about the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia Bill 2019 is available here.

A broad coalition including the Law Council of Australia have opposed the Bill’s reintroduced and issued a statement warning the legislation to merger a specialist Family Court into a single generalist court will not alleviate the fundamental problems plaguing the family law system, including the risk of victims of family violence falling through the cracks. A copy of the media release is available here. The Shadow Attorney-General has also issued a statement, available here.

The Senate has referred the merger bills to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by November 2020. The Association’s position continues to be to oppose the merger and advocate for retaining a stand-alone, specialist Family Court 2.0. The Association’s submission to the 45th Parliament on the merger bills is available here.