By SAT News Desk
MELBOURNE, 18 September: One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has claimed credit for a government probe into the “a wide-ranging inquiry into the family law system. The Joint Parliamentary Committee of both the House and the Senate will be led by Hon Kevin Andrews MP and has to deliver its report by 7 October 2019.
A report in the online Guardian Australia says Pauline denies this as a “bargaining chip” in Senate negotiations but says “she had pushed the Coalition on the matter since 2016, and had recently made the appeal directly to Morrison.”
PM Morrison says, “We want to ensure families can resolve issues as quickly and fairly as possible, so everyone can move on with their lives,” the Prime Minister said.
“This inquiry will allow the Parliament to hear directly from families and listen to them as they give their accounts of how the family law system has been impacting them and how it interacts with the child support system.
“This is a serious issue that has been raised by Members and Senators across the Parliament and I look forward to the Parliament working together through this Committee to bring forward recommendations that look at how the system can be improved.”
The Guardian Australia report says, “While saying she did not believe the system was “rigged” against men, Hanson has advocated for changes that would give fathers more rights in custody battles, and has pointed to the high rates of male suicide as one of her motivations for the push.
“I think that a lot of fathers feel they are not getting a fair go and that is a shame, everyone has a right to a fair go,” she said.
Attorney-General and Minister for Industrial Relations the Hon Christian Porter MP said the Select Committee’s focus would be on specific areas where there may be scope for improvement in the family law system, the courts or other policy areas such as child support.
It will also look at how the family law system, state, and territory child protection systems and family and domestic violence jurisdictions can communicate better.
