The Australian government is proposing a substantial package of reforms to the family law system. It hopes to bring about a substantial shift in the way relationship breakdowns are viewed and dealt with, particularly in cases where children are involved. Significantly, there is a push to reduce separating couples’ reliance on lawyers.
To facilitate this, the Government intends to establish a network of 65 Family Relationship Centres (FRCs) across the country. At a cost of $200 million, these Centres are being designed to address the needs of couples, with particular emphasis on those who are separating or wanting to commence divorce proceedings. Further, the Centres will have a dispute resolution component whose resources will be used help divorcing couples with children develop parenting plans. Trained counsellors and mediators will engage in three mandatory and free hours of dispute resolution with every couple before they enter a court room. But the policy objectives seem confused: are they hoping to salvage marriages or make the process easier?
Establishing this national network of 65 FRCs also duplicates the existing government and publicly funded community sector that already provides access to family relationship services. Approximately 100 community organisations currently receive funding for a program that has been running since the 1960s.
There are some fundamental problems with the setting up of the FRCs. Like the Job Network, there is an obvious concern that the FRCs will “park the hard cases”. Despite funding being tied to performance indicators, there is a strong possibility that the FRCs will make their money processing the simple cases. Moreover, trials of a similar program undertaken in Britain led to the scheme being abandoned. The Australian government has decided against a trial period.
The proposal to establish Family Relationship Centres should be scrapped. They are an example of symbolic politics; in reality they will be no improvement at all. The Government’s proposed family law reforms in relation to divorce are well-intentioned but a closer look at the proposed changes reveals that good outcomes are highly doubtful.
By making dispute resolution compulsory for divorcing couples who do not need help, the Government is reaching new levels of paternalistic intervention. Family Relationship Centres represent the incorporation of private, voluntary and community services into intrusive bureaucracy. They will be costly to run, and if they fail, it will be a costly failure. They needlessly duplicate the voluntary and publicly-funded community sector relationship services. The danger is that this will end up destroying the community sector’s independence, wasting taxpayers’ money, and hindering rather than helping couples who need assistance with the divorce process.
Arti Sharma is a Researcher in the Social Foundations Program at The Centre for Independent Studies.