Radio interview – ABC Radio Hobart

Attorney-General’s portfolio Subjects: Helen Haines, NACC, Family Law, Social Media Minimum Age. RYK GODDARD, HOST: Michelle Rowland, Australia's Attorney-General, is in Hobart. There's a massive family law conference.

There's been some quite big changes in, I guess, the assumptions around it and in dealing with financial abuse. And I'll be asking about those protections in a second. Michelle, good morning.

MICHELLE ROWLAND, ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Good morning. : You're announcing a new Commissioner, Deputy Chief Justice Robert McClelland, and you worked very closely with Helen Haines setting up this Anti-Corruption Commission. What are your thoughts about what's happened to her? Well, firstly, we need to remember that Helen Haines is still in a critical condition and she's fighting for her life and I'm sure we are all praying for her full recovery.

And also, I want to acknowledge all the medical team who is undoubtedly doing their best to help her. And I'm thinking of her family, this must be a time of unimaginable distress. And for someone who is such a measured, thoughtful and genuine person, it is such a terrible thing.

It's actually still, I find it quite unbelievable that this has happened in Australia. So indeed, I'm sure the thoughts of all of us and all of your listeners are with Helen at this time. Michelle Rowland, Attorney-General, with the National Anti-Corruption Commission.

Do we get commissioners in Tasmania and what's their brief? So, this is a National Anti-Corruption Commission. This is the NACC that has been set up for around three years at a federal level.

So we do have state commissions, as those state governments choose to implement them, but this covers the federal jurisdictions, so Commonwealth Public Service, Commonwealth Public Office holders. And as you indicated, Helen Haines was very much a champion of having this put in place in Australia. We committed as a Government to do this if we were elected and it was established last term.

Helen's particular involvement has been as the Deputy Chair of the Parliamentary Oversight Committee that oversees the functioning of the National Anti-Corruption Commission and exactly as you alluded to earlier, we have announced the appointment of a new Commissioner and another Deputy Commissioner and Helen was very much integral to ensuring that not only the process for that was carried out properly but that we have excellent people who are now fulfilling those roles.

And one of those roles, of course, is the new NACC Commissioner who is the Honourable Deputy Chief Justice Robert McClelland of the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia. And exactly as you said, there is the preeminent family law conference taking place in Hobart this week. So, one of the changes is removal of equal shared parental responsibility.

You're listening to Michelle Rowland, Attorney-General of Australia. What's that change? So there have been a number of changes over recent years in the family law since we've been elected and they're to ensure that the family law system evolves with our society.

So, recognising that there's different forms of violence, for example, but also different ways in which people, particularly vulnerable people like children, need to be protected. So part of those changes are making it clear that a court must have regard to the best interest of the child and that is the paramount consideration in deciding parenting orders, so whether there should be a particular parenting order made in relation to a child, their best interest needs to be paramount.

Making sure that different courts can more readily share information and those information sharing provisions, whilst they might sound dry, have actually resulted in much better outcomes and much better knowledge of the courts when they're making those really important decisions about parenting. And also, as I said, there's different ways in which violence can be displayed in these situations.

Normally, people might have once upon a time thought about violence purely in terms of physical violence, but there's now, for example, requirements for the courts to expressly consider the economic impact of family violence when determining property and financial matters. So, whilst these changes have been in place for a couple of years now by and large, the importance of this conference is to look at what challenges are there, how these are working within the family law system and also how technology is reshaping the way that those relationships work because these are often very complex areas.

Family law is actually the area of federal law that most Australians are likely to encounter in their lifetime and they can have really lifelong impacts. And Michelle, I mean it's looking at issues, we've heard stories about this, about superannuation going to abusers of people that they've even killed sometimes because the super company is like, well that's the rules, that's all we can do.

It still seems to be very easy for people to not pay child support or pay it you know, when they feel like it, what's being done to make that more rigorous? Well, we are looking, for example, at the effectiveness of these laws and part of this conference is bringing together the really great experts and also frontline support services. We've got a statutory review that's being done independently to look at whether these reforms are meeting their objectives.

But I should also make clear that across the board, government is always looking at ways to make sure that people who have obligations, including financial obligations, meet them. So, for example, even a few months ago, there was a loophole that enabled people who had court orders to pay victims, their victims, of child sexual abuse. It was found that some of these pernicious individuals were hiding their assets in superannuation so it couldn't be touched.

So, we changed the law in that area. And that was an area that survivors had been pointing out might seem small and inconsequential but has enormous consequences for people to get their dues. How are you addressing the fact that a lot of men, and we always hear from men when we tell these stories, that they feel really hard done by or that they feel they've met their obligations, they've had the assets split, they pay their child support, but they're still being asked for more and more constantly and then shamed, like are there any protections for that?

Well again, the family law system operates independently, but you'll also be aware that child support is primarily administered through Social Services. But I can talk to the fact that we've had a number of legislative changes, and it is important to always be examining their effectiveness and their implementation and the impacts of them. So, I guess my key point on that matter will be this is not a static set and forget area of law.

We are continually reviewing its effectiveness, its fairness, and updating it where necessary. There's this little weird corner, Attorney-General Michelle Rowland, of social security debts where if someone says, "look, don't pay me any money, I'm fine," you then run up this weird family tax benefit B debt, and that reduces agency of couples who are getting along to negotiate things as they go.

What changes are happening to that? Well, again, we're constantly monitoring the impacts in these areas. And I guess what I can say is these are known right across Australia from different professionals.

And it's why it's important to have people in one place to be able to articulate these concerns. And I can assure your listeners that these are areas which, again, might seem quite niche, but they have lifelong impacts on people, which is why we want to make sure that we address them properly. Michelle Rowland, Attorney-General, was instrumental in passing the Online Safety Amendment Act, Social Media Minimum Ages in Australia.

It was world-leading. The whole world is looking at how it's going here. It seems like children are still pretty much online.

Has it not worked how you imagined? Well, as Communications Minister in the last term, we made it very clear that one of the biggest aspects of this was the normative value, the ability to empower parents to be able to say to their children, this is the law, and there are good reasons for it as well. So, we were always very upfront about the fact that, like any technology, people will find ways around it.

But because it is world-leading, because it is a novel area of regulation, we know that we need to send a message as a government, as a society, and it's one that if you ask people whether they think this is a good thing, by and large, people I encounter say that it is. It's been widely welcomed by parents, but also, I think what has really surprised me is how much young people have welcomed it as well.

And I think it's very easy to say that if something hasn’t worked one hundred percent and you haven't got and you're not able to do an audit to show that every 16-year-old isn't online, then that's not the measure we should be using. I think it's important to be sending a message to parents about the support that's available. And also, the fact that we do have these world-leading regulations in place and will continue to...