BILLS › Family Law Amendment Bill 2023, Family Law Amendment (Information Sharing) Bill 2023
Senator RUSTON (South Australia—Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) (14:11): I seek to have the amendments on sheets 2123 and 2132 put together and the amendments on sheets 2131 and 2135 put together, as two separate votes. The PRESIDENT: Certainly. The question is that the amendments on sheets 2123 and 2132 be agreed to. Pauline Hanson's One Nation's circulated amendments to the Family Law Amendment Bill 2023— SHEET 2123 (1) Schedule 1, item 6, page 6 (after line 9), at the end of section 60CC, add: Family violence orders (5) For the purposes of paragraph (2)(a), if the court is considering a family violence order, the court must have regard to the circumstances in which the order was made, including whether the making of the order was contested by a person. (6) If a family violence order was not contested by a person the court must: (a) consider whether there is actual proof of violence relating to the order; and (b) if the court considers that there is no actual proof of violence, the court must not take the order into account when determining what is in a child's best interests. (7) In considering the matters in subsection (6) the court may direct a party to the proceedings to adduce evidence that there is actual proof of violence relating to a family violence order that was not contested by a person. (8) If the court considers that: (a) there is no actual proof of violence in relation to a family violence order that was not contested; and (b) that the order was raised for purely tactical reasons; the court may make an order that the party to the proceeding who raised the order in evidence (including a legal practitioner representing the party) pay some or all of the costs of another party, or other parties, to the proceedings. _____ SHEET 2132 (1) Schedule 8, item 1, page 67 (lines 6 and 7), omit the item, substitute: 1 Subsection 284(1) Repeal the subsection, substitute: (1) The Minister must cause an independent review of the operation of this Act to be conducted within 6 months after the third anniversary of the commencement of this Act. 2 After subsection 284(1) Insert: (1A) Without limiting subsection (1), the review must consider the following in relation to legal practitioners acting in proceedings in the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Division 1) or in family law or child support proceedings (family law practitioners): (a) the appropriateness of fees charged to clients by family law practitioners; (b) the extent that family law practitioners are overcharging and overservicing their clients; (c) the effectiveness of sections 68 and 191 (parties to act consistently with overarching purpose) in reducing overcharging and overservicing by family law practitioners; (d) measures to prevent excessive fees being charged by family law practitioners.