Mr TONY SMITH (12:44 PM) —Once again I have listened very carefully to the honourable member for Chifley (Mr Price), who has just resumed his seat, and his experience and wisdom in this area are not to be gainsaid. We need to listen to the voices of those who are questioning the role of the Family Court and the role that it is taking in society, given the extraordinarily large number of litigants who come before it every year and the effect of the Family Court's judgments upon those litigants.

There certainly is a need to open up the court. I believe that section 121 should be repealed. As I was thinking of making my remarks today, I was reminded of the decision of Scott v. Scott in the House of Lords, which is the seminal decision on the fact that justice should be done in public. It is important, not only for the proper functioning of a court that it be done, but for the interests of justice. There should only be very exceptional circumstances before the doors are closed in relation to the administration of justice in any court. It is as well to recall the principles of the House of Lords in Scott v. Scott.

The constant inquiries that are referred to by my friend who has just resumed his seat and others really beg the question: why is it that we have these constant inquiries? I believe it is because the Family Court is seen my many litigants to have failed in many respects. I refer to the fact that, while there are some very good, experienced, competent and diligent judges, unfortunately there are some within the structure that leave litigants somewhat gasping for breath. My experience both in legal practice and subsequently as a member highlights that fact.

In my view, the court suffers from an inferiority complex. It lacks respect from the legal profession because it fails to properly respect itself. That is a real problem. I believe it arises from the cases that come before it where orders of the court are flagrantly breached and nothing happens to the person breaching those orders. I know from experience in the Supreme Court that a breach of Supreme Court orders is treated very seriously. People who breach those orders wilfully and flagrantly are dealt with severely, because the court must send a message to the community that its orders must be obeyed.

For example, take the case of Sid Brown: he had an order from the Family Court in relation to contact with his child. His ex-wife had previously been convicted of attempted abduction of the young child, who was four years of age, and had been given a bond. Recently, in total disregard of the orders of the court, Mrs Brown moved house and changed her child's school. She moved about 100 kilometres away without notifying Mr Brown. Of course, by this stage after many appearances in the court, Mr Brown's funds were totally exhausted. He made an application for contempt. He came before the judicial registrar, who said, `There are a number of options. I could send her to gaol, fine her, put her on community service or on a bond. But most probably I will do nothing.' That sows the seeds of contempt for the court from the community when the court cannot uphold its own processes, and a court will not earn the respect of the community until it does.

The same thing occurs when there are delays in the court with judgments. In the same case Mr Brown had to wait eight months and 20 days to get a judgment in a custody hearing a couple of years ago. This was in relation to a young child, and it is scandalous. (Extension of time granted) That particular case involved a very young child and custody and the whole situation changed in that eight months. In fact, the application for custody was made two years prior to the judgment being given. When it comes to questions of status quo, how could you possibly say that Mr Brown had a fair hearing in that case?

A constituent of mine, Mrs Meech, was defrauded on a property settlement and similarly had to wait six months after many letters to the particular judge, Mr Justice Underhill. He has now retired and the legal profession will not mourn his passing. He took six months to deliver a decision in relation to a case where assets were dissipated. The end result was that Mrs Meech, whose funds were likewise exhausted, ultimately lodged an appeal and a settlement was reached.

There can be no respect for a system that accepts these sorts of delays. Why are there delays? Are there delays because allegations are made to the court and the courts are tied up in cases that really should not be there? As my friend the member for Chifley said, there are matters that should not be in the court; they should be somewhere else.

There also has to be some combined disincentive for some people to make false allegations in relation to child abuse. Time and time again—and in the profession they call it the atomic bomb—the allegation of child abuse is made and immediately all rights of the father to see the child are suspended and the system is tied up. In the case of Garry Parmenter, he has not seen his son for something approaching two years. The allegations have been found to be untrue and unsubstantiated, yet the system is still tied up investigating all this material. In this case there has been a suggestion by an expert of parroting in relation to the child, and the person making the allegation will just walk out of the court and there will be no disincentive.

Indeed, the great playwright and barrister John Mortimer in a book, an autobiographical work, that he wrote not too many years ago said that, when he was practising in the family jurisdiction in the sixties and seventies, in contested divorce applications every conceivable allegation would be made from leaving a ring around the bath to leaving dirty socks lying around—all those sorts of things—but you would never hear an allegation of child abuse when, had it been present, it would have been a very, very serious allegation. But so often now it is the first allegation. It is used frequently as a weapon to cause problems for fathers who are trying to get access to their children.

Consequently, the whole system which we are talking about with this audit report, is bogged down by the making of what are so often unsubstantiated and outrageous allegations. What happens in the system is that all of the litigants suffer because of it.

Really, we have to start there. And I believe that we have to bring the public into the situation not only as a spectator in the back of the court, but also, I firmly believe, in juries. I firmly believe that the jury process is the one that gets the public into the court, into the process. Believe you me, the criminal jury is one area of law that we have not changed; over hundreds of years of experience, that system is still there. And yet more and more the civil courts have moved away from it.

I ask this question: should we really start thinking about bringing the public back into it, getting these decisions on custody—rather than in eight months—in a few days, the time in which a jury would give them? Let us get commonsense into it, as opposed to all of the experts who are profiting and the huge costs to litigants in these matter.

Overall, we have to look to the background of these things. But also we have to be sensible about the way we approach the administration of justice. We also have to be forward looking and not be bogged down in the past with any pre-existing and preconceived ideas. We need to change this system: it needs to be made much more user friendly, and litigants need to get justice. I believe that in many cases now they are not getting justice.

Mr SPEAKER —Order! The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.