Family Court (Supporting Children in Court) Legislation Bill

Members, we now come to our final debate, clauses 1 and 2. This is the debate on clauses 1 and 2, which is title and commencement.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a quick question, because we’ve spoken in passing on the subject of commencement, the context was the Minister’s comments about the stocktake that’s to take place, and I see that the select committee had turned its collective mind to that in its consideration of the bill. So I think that’s much of the explanation about why the recommendation has come through from the select committee that instead of the Act coming into force more or less immediately, effectively immediately, which is to say the day after the Royal assent, we’ve got a split option. So “the earlier of … [the] date appointed by the Governor-General by Order in Council”, which is more or less the Minister and his Cabinet colleagues, or “the date that is 2 years after the date on which this Act receives the Royal assent.”, so a bit of time there to allow that flexibility for that work to happen. So that’s, I think, pretty well understood.

I note that where you’ve got a situation that it’s in the hands of a Minister as opposed to Parliament to bring into force a law, it’s important that the Minister isn’t able to simply delay indefinitely and therefore defeat the will of Parliament. But because the mechanism is the earlier of two dates, and one of them is a certain date, being two years after the date of Royal assent, I think we’re pretty safe there.

But I just wonder if the Minister can speak about his philosophy that he’ll apply in relation to the date that he determines that the Act can safely come into effect within that two-year window. So he talked about the stocktake—can you give us a heads-up on, sort of, sign posts along the way or what he’s going to need to have some comfort that the law can be brought into force? Just so that those members in the profession and others affected by it can have a degree of certainty about when this change will take place.

Thank you, Madam Chair. We expect the stocktake to be completed by the end of the year, and then in order to develop whatever comes out of stocktake will probably take another six to 12 months. I think that puts us pretty much in the area of the two years that are currently within clause 2 as it stands. If we are able to bring online provisions of the bill earlier that won’t be to the detriment of the wider challenges of the bill, I think we’ll certainly look to use the Order in Council process to bring those provisions in. Again, in order to make sure that we are effecting the change within the purpose of the bill, there are some provisions that I think we might be able to progress faster than others. Again, I don’t want to pre-empt the stocktake, but in order to make sure we are bringing the changes in as soon as we can, we’ll either use the Order in Council process or the two-year availability for the window for the stocktake to happen.