Attorney-General Christian Porter to announce Australian family law overhaul

A MAJOR overhaul of Australia’s family law system is set to be unveiled by Attorney-­General Christian Porter as early as next week.

A MAJOR overhaul of Australia’s family law system is set to be unveiled by Attorney-­General Christian Porter as early as next week.

The changes are designed to end the appalling delays that have seen families waiting years before final judgment.

Family Court of Australia and the Federal Circuit Court of Australia could be forced to work more closely — and have their functions merged.

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The move has been sparked after an internal review found Circuit Court judges were getting through nearly 10 times as many cases each as their ­Family Court counterparts.

It also found years were being added to the time it took to resolve cases because judges were shuffling divorcing couples between the Family Court and the Federal Circuit Court with no right of appeal.

Attorney-General Christian Porter is planning an overhaul of the family law system.

When cases are transferred between the courts, families have to start the whole process again.

Last year, 646 couples had their cases moved from the Federal Circuit Court to the Family Court, while 535 moved the other way.

The average time those couples had been forced to wait before the Federal Circuit Court decided to move their cases was 11.1 months, while those that went the other way had been forced to wait 4.6 months before a judge found they were in the wrong court.

In some cases, couples have been switched between the two courts three times.

When cases are transferred between the courts, families have to start the whole process again.

In one case, a couple who filed in the Federal Circuit Court in July 2015 was forced to move to the Family Court almost two years later in March 2017 only to be moved back to the Federal Circuit Court a month later.

Mr Porter said the government had commissioned a major ­review of family law from the Law Reform Commission.

“In the meantime, I believe significant improvements can be achieved in the management and processes of the courts to make the whole process easier for separating couples, their children and their wider family, who are all ­impacted by the length of time it takes to resolve matters in the courts,” he said.

Christian Porter says the government has commissioned a major ­review of family law.

He said transferring cases between courts exacerbated the delays.

The revelations of the stark differences in efficiency between the two courts come as the backlog of family law cases waiting for resolution has jumped from 17,200 to 21,000 in the past years.

The review found a Federal Circuit Court judge was on ­average getting through ­between 300 and 400 cases a year, while a Family Court judge gets through between 30 to 50 cases.

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