Overhaul might need an overhaul

Last weekend, the Australian Catholic University in Melbourne was home to a National Forum on Family Relationship Centres, convened by the Australian Psychological Society. The event was timely with the Federal Government’s recent amendments to the Family Law Act, and the largest reform seen in Australian family law since 1975.

The Australian family law system has been in need of an overhaul for quite some time, and the Federal Government’s reforms announced this year are, in principle, a significant step in the right direction. Extensive research and consultation with the community has shown that children suffer greatly in relationship breakdowns, and that their welfare is not given due consideration. Community consultation has also revealed that separating couples found the Family Court adversarial, but tended not to use relationships services, instead relying on lawyers and the court to resolve their differences.

To address these problems, the Government has made changes to the Family Law Act to encourage couples to seek help from counsellors and mediators, and to ensure that separating parents give utmost priority to the welfare of their children before approaching the Family Court. It is hoped that these changes will make the separation process less painful and adversarial for all involved.

One of the key mechanisms being introduced by the Federal Government to facilitate these changes is Family Relationship Centres.

The first fifteen of 65 FRCs have been up-and-running for close to six months, with the tender process well underway for the remaining 50. But while the Federal Government’s attempt to make the Australian family law system more equitable and less adversarial is welcome, it’s not clear that these Centres are the way to do it.

One problem is that the key role of these Centres has never been made clear. What outcomes are counsellors trying to achieve when couples approach them with dysfunctional relationships?

The government has never clarified whether FRCs and their staff are meant to make separation and divorce easier, or make peoples’ relationships work and keep marriages together. Even employees of the Centres are confused. A sign on the outside of one FRC reads “Keeping Families Together”, while signs inside suggest the Centre is about “Helping Couples Separate.” This is not only confusing- it is contradictory.

The services being provided by the Centres are nothing new, and FRCs are being run by organisations that already provide these services, such as Relationships Australia and Centacare. There are several dangers in this, the most significant being the loss of identity for the voluntary sector.

By agreeing to run FRCs under a national government badge and identity, with strict (but not fully developed) government guidelines, these organisations risk compromising their identity and independence by becoming simply an arm of government. There is also the danger that organisations which do not get contracts to run FRCs could be “crowded out” of the relationships services sector by larger, well-funded, government-run service providers.

These Centres are a classic case of the government extending its hand and adding another layer of bureaucracy to a system that is already structurally sound.

The Federal Government claims that there is a “visibility problem” with existing voluntary relationship counselling services; that people aren’t aware of the services that are available to them. But this is not a compelling argument for Canberra to take them over. The amended Family Law Act makes it compulsory for some separating couples to attend counselling, before approaching the Family Court. This means that in order to satisfy the compulsory requirement, people will have to seek out these services. There is no need for government to take them over.

The government, through the Family Relationship Services Program, already gives money to a large number of relationship services providers. So why can’t money be spent on promoting the existing services in their independent form, rather than spending $200 million to set up 65 completely new Centres that duplicate what is already available?

Family Relationship Centres should have been trialled. In Britain, a wave of family law reforms were introduced in 2000, including a system of compulsory information meetings and mediation for separating couples before they accessed the Court system. These meetings were rigorously trialled for 18 months and then scrapped, because they were expensive and ineffective in deterring couples from using the courts to resolve any differences.

With a one-year review just around the corner, and given the confusion surrounding the Centres, the Government should put off its plans to establish another fifty Family Relationship Centres. The first 15 should be the subject of a comprehensive and public evaluation process before anymore are established, if at all.

Arti Sharma is a Policy Analyst at The Centre for Independent Studies.