Ms ROXON (3:28 PM) —It is a great pleasure to be able to address this important issue. The government has been saying from one end of the country to the other that it wants to put the interests of families first, that it is desperately concerned about family breakdown and that it thinks that this is an issue—as indeed it is—of great importance to the community. It has committed a significant amount of money, particularly to the family relationship centres program—around $200 million. It would be an important program which everybody could welcome if we were satisfied that it was a program that was going to be rolled out with some transparency and decency. But, instead, members on this side of the House will not be surprised to know when they see the minister sitting at the table—the very same minister who has been known for mismanaging so many other contracts in other portfolios that he has been responsible for—that the roll-out of this $200 million program has no guidelines, that nobody in the department is setting accreditation standards and that it is being opened up to competition for the first time.

That might be welcomed, until members on this side of the House and the rest of the community learn that a bunch of backroom backbenchers from the coalition are going to sit down and decide the selection criteria and the performance criteria for family relationship centres. This $200 million of government money that should be being invested in families is actually going to be overseen by Liberal members who, primarily, by circumstantial accident, are marginal seat members—the members for Deakin, Wakefield, Bass, Stirling, Lindsay and Greenway. They are going to be right in there making decisions about where these centres go, to whom these centres go and what quality standards should apply. This is a first-class rort, and I am beginning to think that the FRC program does not stand for family relationship centres but stands for a government fix, a rort and cronies. This minister is deciding that he wants his backbench to dole out this money to people who, for whatever reason, might have the favour of the government.

This is too important an issue to be biased by backbenchers of the government when family relationship breakdown affects so many people. I do not think there is anyone on this side of the House who relishes the idea of having to go and lobby eight government backbenchers to talk about where these centres should go or who should run them. I would have thought, at a time when the government is changing family law in a significant way—and the government is dealing with a huge reform package—that it would want this to be totally above criticism, that it would want the process to be transparent. But, instead, backbench government marginal seat members are put in a situation of impossible conflict of interest. Even if they were the nicest and best members of parliament in this House, they are in an impossible situation when they will be sitting on a committee where their first duty to their electorates is to argue that they should get one of these centres. Of course that is what members should want for their electorates. These services are important and are going to be very useful in the community, and these members are going to be put in an impossible situation of conflict of interest where people that they know—people who are going to be bidding for these services in their electorate—are going to be knocking on their door every day to ask them whether they can get a centre in their electorate.

This is absolutely outrageous. Think for a moment, members, what these family relationship centres are meant to do. They are meant to screen for violence in families, to make sure that, if there is violence in families, people will not be required to sit down and conciliate when it would not be appropriate to do so—say, if someone were in fear of their safety or security or their children’s safety or security. These family relationship centres are supposed to help parents negotiate parenting plans that will determine their access to their children, their residential arrangements and other critical matters. It is a good idea to try to do this outside the court, but I do not want the people who are doing this highly expert job to be judged by the member for Riverina, the member for Bass, the member for Deakin or the member for Moncrieff, who have no possible expertise to be able to appropriately set accreditation and performance criteria for something as important as this.

I think it is a very sad day, frankly, when the Attorney-General would allow this to happen to what could have been a good program This program stemmed from a report of a committee chaired by the member for Riverina, and members on this side of the House did an enormous amount of work on and supported that report. It argued for a proposal that has been picked up in the family relationships centres. All of this good work that was done across the parliament for something that everyone agrees is important will be thrown out the window because the minister thinks it would be a good idea to keep some backbenchers happy by doling out money to people in their electorates to run these programs.

It is absolutely outrageous and unprecedented to have a government program that has been announced—and we have all received packages in our parliamentary offices telling us how this program will work—when there are still no program guidelines. There is no available tender document, there are no criteria that apply and there is no approval process for funding, but we have eight backbenchers from the government who are going to give us the benefit of their expertise to tell us where these centres should go, who they should service and what sorts of standards they should apply.

I am also particularly concerned that these are delicate services that have to be provided. Relationship counselling is not an easy area, and I think that the Attorney-General would acknowledge that. I think it has been acknowledged that people with different views on what sorts of family structures should be in place, with different religious views or with different views of what is or is not a traditional family have put those views aside to make sure that the counselling services that are provided in this important time when families are going through family breakdowns are not biased in any way by the personal or religious views of the organisations that are providing these services.

What sort of guarantee do we have that these members who are going to be setting in place the standards for this new $200 million program are going to leave behind any of their personal views when they do so? Are we going to suddenly see in the performance criteria for these family relationship centres requirements about what sorts of families are the right model, the traditional model or the proper model? Are we going to have particular religious views pushed? Are we going to have a range of other matters discussed? Like other members, I have read the first speeches of many members in this House, I know that the Attorney-General has chosen some people who have a particular interest in this area and I am concerned that the personal values of individual members—which we are all entitled to bring into this place—are going to somehow be introduced into the guidelines that will apply for family relationship counselling.

Mr Cadman interjecting—

Ms ROXON —What I will also say for the benefit of the member for Mitchell, who always takes a heated interest in this area, is that I think it is of great concern that the one person on this committee who has experience in relationship counselling has—obviously by her experience—contacts and involvement with organisations that will bid for these services. It is a perfect example of why it is entirely inappropriate and a complete conflict of interest to have members of parliament and backbench members of the government—it is not a cross-party committee or a committee with any expertise—overseeing where money is being spent and who it is spent on. This is the first time the longstanding program of family services and relationship counselling, which has always been open to not-for-profit providers, will be open to for-profit providers.

It is a great change to the whole system, and you would think it would be a time that the government would want to make sure that the process for selecting who runs these family relationship centres was completely squeaky clean and above any suggestion of impropriety. That has been totally thrown out the window by the announcement made this week by the Attorney. This is not a job for amateurs; this is a job for experts. This is a job that should be carefully managed by people with appropriate expertise so that we can have confidence that this program delivers what was recommended by the original committee chaired by the member for Riverina and including members from this side of the House. There should be a focus on family relationship breakdown, on counselling and providing services to families that might help prevent breakdown and on providing cheap, alternative, less adversarial processes than those provided in the court.

I think that it is really worrying, frankly, that we have this important change to a program being administered by the Attorney. The Attorney does not have a good track record when it comes to questions of how you influence people. You might all remember on this side of the House—maybe the Attorney has chosen to forget—that a series of issues has been raised repeatedly in this House over the minister’s handling of matters in relation to the immigration portfolio. He knows all about what influence your friends can have if they are in the right place and what influence your friends might expect in the right place. It is not appropriate that he has now put eight members of the government in this position, where they will be lobbied by every person who wants one of these contracts. They will have people beating a path to their door, trying to persuade, charm and urge them to make recommendations about where money should be spent.

We have seen what is happening in the regional rorts program area. You would think the government had learnt nothing from the matters that the member for Wills has been raising day in and day out over the last month. If you were setting up a program worth $200 million, wouldn’t you think you might want it to be at arm’s length from government? Wouldn’t you think you would want it to be completely above reproach? Instead, we have the total opposite. As I have said before, even if the members were the best and hardest working members of this House, it puts them in the impossible position that there is a conflict of interest, there is a perception of conflict of interest and there is a risk that this process will be totally rorted by the government.

They have announced 15 places—15 venues or seats—where there will be relationship centres, and a number of them will be in seats on this side of the House. What is going to be very interesting—

Mrs Hull —And so they should be.

Ms ROXON —Absolutely. What will be very interesting is that, now that those first 15 have been provided and announced, where are the next 50 going to go as we get closer to the election? Where are the next 50 going to go when they get announced next year and in the lead-up to the election? What role will those eight members have in making sure that they deliver to their seats one of these family relationship centres? It is not as though the government decided there would be one for every electorate. It is not as though they are going to cover the whole country. Let us face it, there is competition. I have to say to the Attorney that a lot of people on this side of the House live in areas where, if you look at the demographics, you will see that there is a very high need for good services. We want to make sure and be confident that these services go where they are needed, not where the backbench of the government decides they should go.

I cannot believe that any members of this committee would hold themselves out as having the expertise to handle such sensitive matters of family breakdown, of family violence and of negotiating and helping parents reach agreement about the sharing of their children. I cannot believe that they would hold themselves out as being able to detail the selection and performance criteria that anybody must meet to be able to run one of these family relationship centres. I see the member for Riverina looking the other way when it comes to this, because it is an embarrassing question. She is one of the members—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Hon. IR Causley)—The member for Gellibrand will not incite the member for Riverina.

Ms ROXON —I am complimenting the member for Riverina. She has one of the highest interests in this area and, I am sure, would be the first to recognise that she would not personally possess all the skills required to make this very serious process work properly. She would be the first to do that. Why on earth has the Attorney put members of the government in this position? He has left himself open to allegations of bias, rorting and incompetence. He has left not just this side of the House but all the community concerned that, instead of putting families first when dealing with family reform, he is putting the marginal seat members of his backbench before any consideration of the needs of Australian families. It is a disgrace, and we do not want to be lectured in this House again on how this government puts families’ interests first when actually all it does is put its own interests first. Marginal seat backbench members deciding where the money should go and what rules should apply is a disgrace. The Attorney should stand up and say that he has thought better of this and he is not going to proceed with this absolute rort.